How to Crack Interviews — Practical Guide
A concise, actionable playbook for preparation, communication, and follow-up.
Contents
1. Before the Interview — Preparation
2. Resume & Profile Tips
3. Technical Interviews (Coding)
4. System Design & Senior Roles
5. Behavioral / HR — STAR method
6. Mock interviews & practice plan
7. On the day — delivery & communication
8. After interview — follow-up & negotiation
9. Quick checklist & common questions
10. Resources & templates
1. Before the Interview — Preparation
— Research the company: product, recent news, tech stack, culture. Note 3 things you genuinely
like and one question. — Read the job description: map required skills to your experience
(prepare 2–3 stories for each major requirement). — Know the role level: expectations for IC1 vs
IC3 differ. Prepare accordingly.
2. Resume & Profile Tips
— Keep it 1–2 pages. Lead with impact: bullet = Challenge → Action → Result (numbers!). —
Tailor the top 3 bullets to the role. Use keywords from the job description for automated
screening. — LinkedIn: updated headline, concise summary, project links, Github, portfolio.
3. Technical Interviews (Coding)
— Learn the pattern-based approach: sliding window, two pointers, DFS/BFS, dynamic
programming, Greedy, sorting + two pointers, hashing. — Practice platforms: LeetCode,
HackerRank, Codeforces (easy/medium), but focus on patterns not blind solving. — Interview
strategy:
1. Clarify requirements and ask about constraints and input sizes.
2. Think out loud — narrate your reasoning and trade-offs.
3. Write a correct brute-force first if stuck, then optimize.
4. Analyze time & space complexity and test edge cases.
5. Use examples: dry-run with small inputs and boundary cases.
Sample coding answer structure (what to say):
1) Restate problem and confirm assumptions. 2) Ask about constraints, sizes,
and acceptable complexity. 3) Propose approach(s), pick one and explain why.
4) Write the solution and run through an example. 5) Discuss complexity and
alternatives.
4. System Design & Senior Roles
— Start high level: requirements (functional + non-functional), traffic estimates, data size, SLAs.
— Draw components: APIs, data stores, caches, load balancers, async queues; justify choices.
— Discuss scaling, sharding, replication, consistency trade-offs, monitoring, and failure modes.
— Practice common systems: URL shortener, chat system, news feed, file upload, ecommerce
checkout.
5. Behavioral / HR — STAR method
Use STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result): describe the situation, your task, concrete actions
you took, and measurable results. Prepare 6–8 stories covering leadership, conflict, failure,
learning, ownership, and impact.
Example short STAR:
Situation: Our payments API had 95%+ failure rate under peak. Task: I led a
task force to stabilize payments in 2 weeks. Action: Added retries, introduced
circuit breaker, optimized DB queries, and rolled out canary. Result: Reduced
failure rate to <1% and increased checkout conversion by 4%.
6. Mock interviews & practice plan
— 12-week plan (example): Weeks 1–4: Data structures & patterns (arrays, strings, linked lists,
stacks, queues, hashmaps). Weeks 5–8: Algorithms (sorting, trees, graph basics, dynamic
programming). Weeks 9–10: System design + behavioral prep. Weeks 11–12: Mock interviews,
timed coding, and feedback. — Use timed sessions (45–60 min) and record yourself or get peer
feedback.
7. On the day — delivery & communication
— Be ready: charged laptop, stable internet, IDE set up, simple environment (no distractions). —
Small talk: 30–60 seconds. Be human but concise. — If stuck: outline a brute force, ask for hints,
and show progress. Interviewers prefer progress over silence. — For take-home tests: deliver
clean code, README, tests, and a short design note explaining trade-offs.
8. After interview — follow-up & negotiation
— Send a short thank-you email reiterating interest and one line about what you’d bring. — If you
get an offer: evaluate total comp (salary, bonus, stock, benefits, leave, growth), and negotiate
politely with data. — If rejected: ask for feedback, note weak areas, and iterate.
9. Quick checklist & common questions
Checklist before any technical interview: - Laptop, charger, headphones - Working editor, clean
workspace - Notes: 3 stories, 3 accomplishments, 3 questions for interviewer - Latest resume
and links Common questions to prepare: - Tell me about yourself. - Walk me through your
resume. - Describe a time you failed. - Explain a technical project you led. - How do you prioritise
tasks?
10. Resources & templates
— Practice: LeetCode (Top 150/Patterns), Grokking the Coding Interview (pattern-based),
System Design Primer (GitHub). — Mock interviews: Pramp, Interviewing.io, peers or mentors.
— Salary data: Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, LinkedIn Salaries.
Appendix: Short templates
Thank-you email (short):
Hi , Thanks for your time today — I enjoyed learning about . I remain very
interested in this role and believe my experience with can help . Please let me
know if you need anything else. Best,
Tell me about yourself — 30s structure:
1) Present: current role + highlight 2) Past: 1–2 relevant achievements 3)
Future: why this role and company
Final tips
— Focus on clarity, not perfect code. Interviewers hire reliable engineers who communicate well.
— Track progress: keep a journal of interviews, outcomes, and feedback. — Consistency beats
cramming: steady daily practice is more effective.
