If you’re anything like me, technical interviews can be very nerve recking, especially timed ones! You look at the problem, look at the ticking clock, and before you even read the question your palms are sweating and you’ve magically forgotten everything.

Well, I’m here to help calm your nerves and, hopefully, help you get your thoughts in order so that you can pass that technical interview and be that much closer to getting your dream job.

I was fortunate enough to dig into the world famous book ‘Cracking The Coding Interview’ by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. If you are a software engineer or just getting into the tech industry, I highly recommend you get your hands on a copy. The book does a great job of preparing individuals for the technical portion of the interview process. Today I am going to be talking about the seven steps to problem solving during a technical interview, discussed in the book.

Step 1: Listen

You want to make sure you get a good grasp of the problem description. Be sure to ask any necessary question to clarify any details that may seem not so clear. Do not be afraid to ask questions! I find it helpful to take little notes and jot down specified details that the interviewer may have given so that I can refer back to the notes and be sure that my code takes all details into account.

Step 2: Example

Before you begin coding, you want to make an example case. Actually, you want to have multiple test cases for examples. But you don’t want to have an example that is too easy, because this may not cover all test cases and could easy slip past a specific detail. So what does a good example consist of? Well, according to ‘Cracking the Coding Interview’, your example should be: ‘Specific… Sufficiently large… Not a special case.’

Step 3: Brute Force

Next up, you want to find the easiest solution you can think of. This will show the interviewer that you are capable of solving the problem. This will also help you gain clarity on the problem and give you some guidance while writing your optimal solution as well. So before you begin spending the time to write the most optimal solution, try to get the easy solution out first.

#technical-interview #crackingtheinterviews #coding #coding-challenge #problem-solving