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104 lines
6.0 KiB
104 lines
6.0 KiB
Interview Cheatsheet
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This is a straight-to-the-point, distilled list of technical interview Do's and Don'ts, mainly for algorithmic interviews. Some of these may apply to only phone screens or 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.
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For a detailed walkthrough of interview preparation, refer to the ["Preparing for a Coding Interview"](./) section.
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**Legend:** ✅ = Do, ❌ = Don't, ⚠️ = Situational
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### 1. Before Interview
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|✅|Prepare pen, paper and earphones/headphones.|
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|✅|Find a quiet environment with good Internet connection.|
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|✅|Ensure webcam and audio are working. There were times I had to restart Chrome to get Hangouts to work again.|
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|✅|Request for the option to interview over Hangouts/Skype instead of a phone call; it is easier to send links or text across.|
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|✅|Decide on and be familiar with a programming language.|
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|✅|Familiarize yourself with the coding environment (CoderPad/CodePen). Set up the coding shortcuts, turn on autocompletion, tab spacing, etc.|
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|✅|Prepare answers to the [frequently-asked questions](../non-technical/behavioral.md) in an interview.|
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|✅|Prepare some [questions to ask](../non-technical/questions-to-ask.md) at the end of the interview.|
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|✅|Dress comfortably. Usually you do not need to wear smart clothes, casual should be fine. T-shirts and jeans are acceptable at most places.|
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|✅|Stay calm and composed.|
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|⚠️|Turn off the webcam if possible. Most remote interviews will not require video chat and leaving it on only serves as a distraction.|
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### 2. Introduction
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|✅|Introduce yourself in a few sentences under a minute or two.|
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|✅|Mention interesting points that are relevant to the role you are applying for.|
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|✅|Sound enthusiastic! Speak with a smile and you will naturally sound more engaging.|
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|❌|Spend too long introducing yourself. The more time you spend talking the less time you have to code.|
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### 3. Upon Getting the Question
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|✅|Repeat the question back at the interviewer.|
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|✅|Clarify any assumptions you made subconsciously. Many questions are under-specified on purpose. A tree-like diagram could very well be a graph that allows for cycles and a naive recursive solution would not work.|
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|✅|Clarify input format and range. Ask whether input can be assumed to be well-formed and non-null.|
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|✅|Work through a small example to ensure you understood the question.|
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|✅|Explain a high level approach even if it is a brute force one.|
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|✅|Improve upon the approach and optimize. Reduce duplicated work and cache repeated computations.|
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|✅|Think carefully, then state and explain the time and space complexity of your approaches.|
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|✅|If stuck, think about related problems you have seen before and how they were solved. Check out the [tips](../algorithms) in this section.|
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|❌|Ignore information given to you. Every piece is important.|
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|❌|Jump into coding straightaway.|
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|❌|Start coding without interviewer's green light.|
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|❌|Appear too unsure about your approach or analysis.|
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### 4. During Coding
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|✅|Explain what you are coding/typing to the interviewer, what you are trying to achieve.|
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|✅|Practice good coding style. Clear variable names, consistent operator spacing, proper indentation, etc.|
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|✅|Type/write at a reasonable speed.|
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|✅|As much as possible, write actual compilable code, not pseudocode.|
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|✅|Write in a modular fashion. Extract out chunks of repeated code into functions.|
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|✅|Ask for permission to use trivial functions without having to implement them; saves you some time.|
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|✅|Use the hints given by the interviewer.|
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|✅|Demonstrate mastery of your chosen programming language.|
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|✅|Demonstrate technical knowledge in data structures and algorithms.|
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|✅|If you are cutting corners in your code, state that out loud to your interviewer and say what you would do in a non-interview setting (no time constraints). E.g., I would write a regex to parse this string rather than using `split()` which may not cover all cases.|
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|✅|Practice whiteboard space-management skills.|
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|⚠️|Reasonable defensive coding. Check for nulls, empty collections, etc. Can omit if input validity has been clarified with the interviewer.|
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|❌|Remain quiet the whole time.|
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|❌|Spend too much time writing comments.|
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|❌|Use extremely verbose variable names.|
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|❌|Copy and paste code without checking.|
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|❌|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.|
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|❌|Write too big (takes up too much space) or too small (illegible) if on a whiteboard.|
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### 5. After Coding
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|✅|Scan through your code for mistakes as if it was your first time seeing code written by someone else.|
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|✅|Check for off-by-one errors.|
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|✅|Come up with more test cases. Try extreme test cases.|
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|✅|Step through your code with those test cases.|
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|✅|Look out for places where you can refactor.|
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|✅|Reiterate the time and space complexity of your code.|
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|✅|Explain trade-offs and how the code/approach can be improved if given more time.|
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|❌|Immediately announce that you are done coding. Do the above first!|
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|❌|Argue with the interviewer. They may be wrong but that is very unlikely given that they are familiar with the question.|
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### 6. Wrap Up
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|✅|Ask questions. More importantly, ask good and engaging questions that are tailored to the company! Pick some questions from [this list](../non-technical/questions-to-ask.md).|
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|✅|Thank the interviewer.|
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|⚠️|Ask about your interview performance. It can get awkward.|
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|❌|End the interview without asking any questions.|
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### 7. Post Interview
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|✅|Record the interview questions and answers down as these can be useful for future reference.|
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|⚠️|Send a follow up email to your interviewer(s) thanking them for their time and the opportunity to interview with them.|
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