Add in interview cheatsheet

README.md

@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 Carefully curated content to help you ace your next technical interview, with a focus on algorithms and the front end domain. System design questions are in-progress. Besides the usual algorithm questions, other **awesome** stuff includes:
 
 - [How to prepare](preparing) for coding interviews
+- [Interview Cheatsheet](preparing/cheatsheet.md) - Straight-to-the-point Do's and Don'ts
 - [Algorithm tips and the best practice questions](algorithms) categorized by topic
 - ["Front-end Job Interview Questions" answers](front-end/interview-questions.md)
 - [Interview formats](non-technical/interview-formats.md) of the top tech companies
@@ -42,6 +43,7 @@ Also, existing resources focus mainly on algorithm questions, and lack in covera
 ## Contents
 
 - **[Preparing for a Coding Interview](preparing)**
+  - [Interview cheatsheet](preparing/cheatsheet.md) - Straight-to-the-point Do's and Don'ts
 - **[Algorithm Questions](algorithms)** - Questions categorized by topics
 - **[Design Questions](design)**
 - **[Front-end Study Notes](front-end)** - Summarized notes on the various aspects of front-end

preparing/cheatsheet.md

@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+Interview Cheatsheet
+==
+
+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.
+
+### 1. Before Interview
+
+**Do's**
+
+- Prepare pen, paper and earphones/headphones.
+- Find a quiet environment with good internet connection.
+- Stay calm and composed.
+- Familiarize yourself with the coding environment - CoderPad, CodePen, etc.
+- Dress comfortably. Usually you do not need to wear shirt and tie.
+
+### 2. Introduction
+
+**Do's**
+
+- Introduce yourself in a few sentences under a minute.
+- Mention interesting points that are relevant to the role you are applying for.
+- Sound enthusiastic! Speak with a smile and you will naturally sound more engaging.
+
+**Don'ts**
+
+- Spend too long introducing yourself. The more time you spend talk the less time you have to code.
+
+### 3. Upon Getting the Question
+
+**Do's**
+
+- Repeat the question back at the interviewer.
+- 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.
+
+**Don'ts**
+
+- Ignore information given to you. Every piece is important.
+- Jump into coding straightaway.
+- Start coding without interviewer's green light.
+
+### 4. During Coding
+
+**Do's**
+
+- Practice good coding style. Clear variable names, consistent operator spacing.
+- 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.
+
+**Don'ts**
+
+- Remain quiet the whole time.
+- Spend too much time writing comments.
+- Use extremely verbose variable names.
+- Copy and paste code without checking.
+- Write too big (takes up too much space) or too small (illegible) if on a whiteboard.
+
+### 5. After Coding
+
+**Do's**
+
+- Scan through your code for mistakes as if it was your first time seeing code written by someone else.
+- Check for off-by-one errors.
+- Come up with more test cases. Try extreme test cases.
+- Step through your code with those test cases.
+- Look out for places where you can refactor.
+- Reiterate the time and space complexity of your code.
+- Explain trade-offs and how the code/approach can be improved if given more time.
+
+**Don'ts**
+
+- Immediately announce that you are done coding.
+- Argue with the interviewer.
+
+### 6. Wrap Up
+
+**Do's**
+
+- Ask questions and ask good questions! Pick some questions from [here](../non-technical/questions-to-ask).
+- Ask questions that are tailored to the company.
+- Thank the interviewer.
+
+**Don'ts**
+
+- End the interview without asking any questions.