6 Weeks to Interview Ready

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How is this course different?

● Most people just list stuff to learn

● Most people focus on quantity of

problems

● Most people tell you you have to learn

every obscure concept
My goals for this course

● Help you nail your interview (duh)

● My specific focus:

○ Get good enough

○ Build confidence

○ Have a system
Get you “good enough” at interviewing

● Interviewing is it’s own skill

● How good do you actually need to be to be

successful?

● Unless you want to become a professional

interviewer, the goal should be to get just
good enough.

● Aiming for Apply/Analyze level Bloom’s Taxonomy

Build your confidence

● The #1 reason people fail interviews is

lack of confidence!

● Nervousness == Lack of confidence

● Forgetting stuff == Lack of confidence

● Memorizing == Lack of confidence

Have a system

● The easiest way to get screwed up is by

not having a system

● A system allows you to perform

consistently in your interviews regardless
of the situation

● You’ll also avoid getting stuck

I want you to be asymmetrical

The most important rule of trading is to

play great defense, not offense.

- Paul Tudor Jones

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How this course works

● Core modules

● Workbook

● Topic-specific bonus material

Module 1 - Getting Started (you are here)

● Laying the course foundations

● Setting your mindset

● The 3 Pillars of Coding Interviews

● Developing your Lean Study Schedule

● Establishing a clear baseline

Module 2 - Your Problem Solving Framework

● The #1 reason that people fail their interviews again and again

● How to turn your interviewing into a repeatable system

● My 6 step system for solving any coding interview question, even if I’ve
never seen it before

● The counterintuitive problem solving step that 90% of people completely

skip
Module 3 - Optimizing Your Solutions

● Why prematurely optimizing our code actually hurts us more than it helps

● The REAL expectations our interviewer has for our code optimization

● Determining whether our code can be improved using the “best

conceivable runtime”

● How to optimize any code using the BUD system

Module 4 - Tackling Hard Problems

● The 3 “hail mary” strategies to use when you’re really stuck

● How to avoid your mind going blank when facing a hard problem

● Why modularizing is critical to your interview success

● What most hard interview questions have in common, and how to handle
them easily
Module 5 - Tying Everything Together

● Completing your ultimate interview system

● How to ensure that you’re able to execute, even under pressure

● Develop the true confidence of a great interviewee

● Your foolproof pre-interview plan

Module 6 - Where To Go From Here

● Why most studying that you do is totally ineffective and how to study
differently.

● How to learn twice as much in half the time

● Avoid “illusions of competence” so that you can be confident you know

what you think you know
One last note...

● This is going to be hard, but it will

be worth it

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The 3 Pillars of Interviewing
Why is interview prep so hard?

● So many different resources

● So many things to learn

● Your focus is pulled in a million directions

so you don’t make much progress in any
direction
3 Pillars of Interviewing
3 Pillars of Interviewing

CS Fundamentals
3 Pillars of Interviewing

Problem Solving
CS Fundamentals Strategy
3 Pillars of Interviewing

Problem Solving
CS Fundamentals Strategy
Self Confidence
3 Pillars of Interviewing

Problem Solving
CS Fundamentals Strategy
Self Confidence

Consistent Practice
10 Interview Myths
1. Your interviewer wants you to fail

“I had to stop going to auditions

thinking, 'Oh, I hope they like me.' I
had to go in thinking I was the answer
to their problem.”

- George Clooney
2. Your interviewer expects you to
immediately know the solution

● How long do you have to come up with a

solution before they fail you?

● There is no single answer, but this is not

the metric interviewers care about

● They care much more about how you work

through the problem

● The best interview questions are too

involved to immediately just see the
solution
3. You succeed or fail within the first 2
minutes of your interview

● “If I don’t immediately see the solution,

then I can’t solve the problem.”

● This is what we’re tackling in this course

● The best interviewees are good at problem

solving. Not pattern recognition
4. If my interviewer gives me a hint I’ve
already failed

● Hints aren’t necessarily a bad thing.

Remember it’s all relative

● Small mistakes are only a problem if you

make them a problem

● I treat each hint as a small deduction

● Parker Phinney: They may be trying to

guide you away from common pitfalls
5. The best way to succeed is to memorize
as many solutions as possible

● This is the premise behind grinding on

Leetcode

● The best way to succeed is to know how

to work through problems you haven’t seen
before

● This is a much more time-effective

approach
6. You need to memorize all the named
algorithms

● This is an easy way to waste a ton of time

● Memorizing algorithms is slow.

Memorizing the names is even worse

● Better to focus on the basic strategies

rather than the specific algorithm
7. Everyone else is way better/smarter than
me

● I’ve totally felt this way. Some people are

just really smart

● Mostly, this is impostor syndrome

● Self-fulfilling prophecy. Lack of confidence

breeds lack of success
8. Interviewing successfully is about deep
DS and Algos knowledge

● Yes this is important…

● ...But the #1 most important thing is your

problem solving skills

● You need to have the fundamentals, but

beyond that, going deeper has major
diminishing returns
9. Companies always ask really hard
questions

● Seems logical but often not true

● Almost never harder than expected, but

frequently easier than expected

● If you practice hard problems, then your

interview will be easy by comparison
10. It is better to overprepare

● Personal preference, but I don’t want to

waste time

● You don’t know if you’re ready or not until

you try

● If you mess up, you can always interview

again in the future

● Would you rather maybe get the job now or

just wait a year and still not be guaranteed
the job?
Developing Your Lean Study
Schedule
The One Key to Interview Success

Problem Solving
CS Fundamentals Strategy
Self Confidence

Consistent Practice
How do we stay consistent?

● There’s lots going on in our lives

● Interviewing definitely isn’t the most fun

thing

● We create a Lean Study Schedule to keep

us consistent
What is a Lean Study Schedule

● The goal here is not to study as much as

possible

● Instead, we want to develop a minimal

schedule that you can stick to

● Aiming to minimize effort and maximize

results
How to create a Lean Study Schedule

1. Start with your busiest day. Where can you

squeeze in 15-30 minutes of studying?

2. Block off the time in your calendar (what

gets scheduled gets done)

3. Expand to the rest of your week. Try to

keep the same time if you can
Tips for your Lean Study Schedule

● Don’t overcommit

● Plan ahead and find a time that works for

you

● Understand your why

“I don’t have any time”
● This is almost certainly not true

● Is there an existing spot on your calendar

that is regularly available?

● Can you move anything around to free up

time?

● Can you study:

○ On your commute?
○ During your lunch break?
○ Wake up 30 minutes earlier?
○ Stay up 30 minutes later?
“I don’t have any time”

● Still can’t find time? Do a time audit

1. Set an alarm to go off every 30 minutes

2. Record what you did for the last 30
minutes
3. Repeat for a week
4. Look back and see how much time was
wasted

Google for lots of good resources

The myth of motivation

● “Professional writers don’t have muses; they have

mortgages.” ― Larry Kahaner

● Just sit down and do something

○ Daily exercises will make this easier

● The 5 minute rule

● If you’re really struggling, find something easier to

do like reading a chapter of a textbook

● Focus on building a habit and momentum

The Workbook
Your Interview Prep Plan

● The workbook is your plan

● It includes daily exercises for the duration

of the course

● It will help you reinforce everything that

you’re learning throughout the course
How to use the workbook

● Set aside 30 minutes per day to go

through the exercises

● I recommend watching the week’s lessons

first

● Do one set of exercises each day

● Try to be as consistent as possible

“I want to go faster”

● If you have extra time, you can do multiple

problem sets per day

● However, I would recommend you follow

the prescribed pace

● If you have extra time, focus on improving

your fundamentals
“What if I get behind?”

● This is TOTALLY FINE!

● First, don’t stress out or beat yourself up

about getting behind

● Just pick up where you left off and reset

your intention to be as consistent as
possible