We revamped our resume guide - it now has step-by-step instructions on how to prepare a FAANG-ready resume!

1. Set up your ATS-proof resume template
2. Write effective resume content
3. Optimize your resume
4. Use free tools to review your resume

Check it out - https://www.techinterviewhandbook.org/resume/guide

Ever wondered what the differences between Front End and Back End System Design Interviews were? Check out this guest blog post by Senior Software Engineer at Instacart, Zhenghao He

https://www.techinterviewhandbook.org/blog/front-end-vs-back-end-system-design-interviews/

Introducing Grind 75, a better and updated version of Blind 75 which allows you to customize your schedule, difficulty, topics and goes beyond 75 questions

https://www.techinterviewhandbook.org/grind75

After doing over 500 LeetCode questions and having interviewed hundreds of candidates, we have gathered a bunch of useful LeetCode tips. Here they are:

1. Revise your CS fundamentals before your start LeetCoding. You don't have to spend that much time studying, but you need to know the advantages of each data structure and when to use which for the question.

2. The average question difficulty you'll get is Medium. Start with Easy questions, do more of them, move on to Medium questions. You probably won't be asked Hard questions in real interviews but you should do some famous Hard questions like Word ladder, serialize/deserialize Binary tree and trapping rain water. You should not be practicing only Easy questions.

3. LeetCode is not fully representative of real interviews. In real interviews, you don't get long descriptions nor do you get so many test cases. Questions in interviews are intentionally vague and underspecified, you have to clarify the requirements. You will also not be given input ranges during interviews.

4. To better simulate interview conditions, come up with a solution in your mind and be sure of the time and space complexity before you start to code. Trial and error-ing during the interview is not seen as a positive signal. As a good habit I write the time and space complexity of my solution as a comment above my solution.

5. If you find yourself stuck after half an hour on a question. Determine if you are close enough to cracking it. If you're close, try for a while longer. Otherwise read the solutions and move on. Learn the technique that was crucial to solving the question and internalize it. Revisit in a few day's time and try to solve it without referring to the answer this time. LeetCode also shows you similar questions for a problem. To test if you have understood the concepts, try the similar questions and see if you can solve them.

6. You might not get to run your code during interviews. Interviewers aren't just evaluating how correct your code is, the signals you exhibit during the process matters as well. You can end up failing even though you wrote correct code but it's messy and not readable. You can also end up passing even if your code had a minor mistake but your code is super clean and well-structured. Getting an Accepted doesn't mean you did well if you only got it on your tenth attempt. Before hitting the submit button, scrutinize your solution hard. Come up with test cases, standard ones, edge cases, think whether your code will pass those cases. You can run your code against your own test cases, it's still better than hitting the submit button. Just note that you might not get to do that during interviews.

7. Some topics are more important than the others. DFS, BFS, binary search, trees, graphs are the most important and common ones. If you're going for Google, practice DP. If you suck at DP like me, at least be good at backtracking with memoization.

8. The chosen language doesn't matter as much as your mastery of the language. You don't have to pick up Python just because it's the best language for interviews. But if you have enough time (more than two months), it might be worth doing so.

9. You don't need to practice too many questions. 100-200 is sufficient for most. After a while, the questions are variations of previous questions and are based off the same patterns. The returns on practicing above 300 questions is marginal at best. The full list of 169 questions in Grind 75 (https://grind75.com) is 90% of what you need.

10. LeetCoding is a marathon, not a sprint. If you start too early, you run out of steam. Start too late and there's not enough time for spaced repetition to take effect. Recommend starting a few months in advance and spending 1hr a day doing a few questions per day. You should be in top shape when it's time for interviews. If you've completed all recommended practice questions, do the weekly contests. If you can solve at least 3 of them, you should be ready for interviews.

11. You might never feel ready for interviews and that's perfectly normal. Interviewing is a numbers game. Interview performance is a function of luck and preparation. The more you prepare, the "luckier" you get. You will fail some and you will pass some. You just need to pass one.

We have a Discord channel now - https://discord.gg/usMqNaPczq

Feel free to ask any questions there 🙂

In case you weren’t aware, Tech Interview Handbook is using Docusaurus 2.0 to build its website. Both the handbook and Docusaurus 2.0 were built by the same person, me 🙂

Docusaurus is a project used by many open source projects to quickly build static websites, suitable for docs and blogs. I started contributing to Docusaurus in 2018 part-time and started Docusaurus 2.0 in the same year, and released a few alpha versions of the project. I've been less active on it since 2020 but Sebastien Lorber from the community stepped up and took over leadership on the project, grew it to over 35k stars on GitHub and it's the 6 most starred open source project by Meta/Facebook right now!

Today, we're finally launching a stable Docusaurus 2.0 and are currently #1 on Product Hunt. Please help to upvote it so that Docusaurus can hopefully be the #1 product of the day. Thanks a lot 🙂

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/docusaurus-2-0

[ANNOUNCEMENT!] Resume Review Portal

As you apply for your dream jobs or internships, have you ever felt unsure about your resume? Have you wondered about how others got past resume screening in a breeze? 😨

Wonder no more! Tech Interview Handbook is launching a new resume review portal where you can upload your resumes and get feedback from the tech community! 🔥

How do I start? 🤔
Watch our 1-minute walkthrough video here

Want to review with us? 🧐
Watch how it is done as Alwyn from Open Government Products Singapore reviews a resume on our portal

If there are any feedback on the portal you will like to make or features you will like to see, kindly add on to the GitHub issue here or drop us the feedback at on this google form 😄

[ANNOUNCEMENT!] Tech Offers Repo

Getting offers is hard, and choosing between them is even harder: "Am I being lowballed? Are my offers competitive enough?"🤔 Well, you don’t have to worry anymore! Introducing the Tech Offers Repo 🥳 Over the past few weeks, we have been working hard to create this platform for you. Here, you can view a range of latest salary information tech salary information! On top of that, you can get a personalized analysis of your offers by submitting them to our platform. Check it out now at: https://app.techinterviewhandbook.org/offers

In the next few days, we will be posting a series of 🌟Top 5 Salaries🌟 for Software Engineer intern/fresh grad in various industries across the world. Stay tuned for more details!

[ANNOUNCEMENT!] Tech Question Bank

Feeling underprepared for your upcoming interview 😩? Unsure on the type of live coding question you are going to be asked?

Introducing the brand new Question Bank! 🏛 The Question Bank is a growing repository of extensive interview questions from different roles, companies, and types. Prepare with ✨REAL✨interview questions posted by the community❤️.

Check out our video for a sneak peek at our features!

Visit now to start your preparations now and head into your interview with confidence on the type of questions you are going to experience!