This is a straight-to-the-point distilled list of technical interview Do's and Don'ts. Some of these may apply to only phone screens on whiteboard interviews but most will apply to both. I revise this list before each of my interviews to remind myself of them and eventually internalized all of them to the point I do not have to rely on it anymore.
For a detailed walkthrough of interview preparation, refer to the ["How to Prepare"](./) section.
### 1. Before Interview
**Do's**
- Prepare pen, paper and earphones/headphones.
- Find a quiet environment with good internet connection.
- Find a quiet environment with good Internet connection.
- Stay calm and composed.
- Familiarize yourself with the coding environment - CoderPad, CodePen, etc.
- Familiarize yourself with the coding environment (CoderPad/CodePen). Set up the coding shortcuts, turn on autocompletion, tab spacing, etc.
- Dress comfortably. Usually you do not need to wear shirt and tie.
### 2. Introduction
@ -33,29 +35,29 @@ This is a straight-to-the-point distilled list of technical interview Do's and D
- Clarify input format and range.
- Work through a small example to ensure you understood the question.
- Explain a high level approach even if it is a brute force one.
- Improve upon the approach and optimize.
- State and explain the time and space complexity of your approaches.
- If stuck, think about related problems you've seen before and how they were solved. Check out the [tips](../algorithms) in this section.
- Improve upon the approach and optimize. Reduce duplicated work and cache repeated computations.
- Think carefully, then state and explain the time and space complexity of your approaches.
- If stuck, think about related problems you have seen before and how they were solved. Check out the [tips](../algorithms) in this section.
**Don'ts**
- Ignore information given to you. Every piece is important.
- Jump into coding straightaway.
- Start coding without interviewer's green light.
- Appear too unsure about your approach or analysis.
### 4. During Coding
**Do's**
- Practice good coding style. Clear variable names, consistent operator spacing.
- Practice good coding style. Clear variable names, consistent operator spacing, proper indentation, etc.
- Defensive coding. Check for nulls, empty collections, etc.
- Explain what you are coding/typing to the interviewer, what you are trying to achieve.
- Type/write at a reasonable speed.
- Write in a modular fashion. Extract out chunks of repeated code into functions.
- Use the hints given by the interviewer.
- Practice whiteboard space-management skills.
- Demonstrate mastery of the language.
- Let the interviewer talk. Usually if they speak, they are trying to give you hints or steer you in the right direction.
- Demonstrate mastery of your chosen programming language.
**Don'ts**
@ -63,6 +65,7 @@ This is a straight-to-the-point distilled list of technical interview Do's and D
- Spend too much time writing comments.
- Use extremely verbose variable names.
- Copy and paste code without checking.
- Interrupt your interviewer when they are talking. Usually if they speak, they are trying to give you hints or steer you in the right direction.
- Write too big (takes up too much space) or too small (illegible) if on a whiteboard.
### 5. After Coding
@ -86,10 +89,10 @@ This is a straight-to-the-point distilled list of technical interview Do's and D
**Do's**
- Ask questions and ask good questions! Pick some questions from [here](../non-technical/questions-to-ask.md).
- Ask questions that are tailored to the company.
- Ask questions. More importantly, ask good and engaging questions that are tailored to the company! Pick some questions from [here](../non-technical/questions-to-ask.md).
- Thank the interviewer.
**Don'ts**
- End the interview without asking any questions.
- Ask about interview performance. It can get awkward.
Yangshun Tay
7 years ago