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tiredoftools / Interview-Prep

This is interview prep curriculum, for post-bootcamp preparation for interviews.

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#Interview Prep#

These course materials are designed to prepare you for a technical whiteboarding interview at a tech company in San Francisco. The main point of these interviews is to see what your problem-solving skills are like, to see how you think through things, how you behave under pressure, and to test your memory of syntax of a programming language.

Unfortunately, the skills you must aquire in order to pass a whiteboarding interview are dissimilar to those that you learned when you learned programming. You will still need this programming knowledge, and you will need the problem-solving skills you've picked up while learning to program, but because you're not going to be in an idealized programming environment, you must be able to program in unfamiliar environments.

If you are a senior developer, you can probably make it through this curriculum in two weeks.

A mid-level developer will range from 3-6 weeks.

Junior developers may take anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks to finish this course.

##Structure##

  • Syllabus
  • Section One - Basic Functions
  • Section Two - Data Structures
  • Section Three - Linked Lists, Trees, Graphs
  • Section Four - Object Oriented Programming
  • Section Five - Problem Solving for Longer Problems
  • Section Six - Brain Teasers
  • Section Seven - Pairing
  • Section Eight - Technology
  • Section Nine - Databases
  • Section Ten - Software Engineering

Running This Curriculum

This course should be started at least four weeks prior to the end of the immersive if it is used for an immersive engineering program. You should cover at least 1 unit per week. It depends on prior, but recent, programming experience. It was designed for use by immersives, but should you wish to run it as a study group you should meet up at least 4 times a week, for 2.5 hours.

Spend at least an hour each day completing these challenges on paper. Use pencil. Spend at least an hour each day practicing doing these challenges on a whiteboard, in front of at least one other person.
Spend at least half an hour reading other people's solutions to these problems, and watching other people solve them.

Basic functions

##Exercises##

  1. String Parsing
    1. Reverse
    2. Palindromes
    3. Substr
    4. Split
  2. List Searching
    1. Missing Number
    2. Highest Int
    3. Highly Divisible
    4. Binary Search
  3. Recursion
    1. Fibonacci Recursion
    2. Recursive List Manipulations
      1. Length
      2. Reverse
      3. Find

##Concepts##

  1. Big O Notation
  2. Whiteboarding Strategies
    1. Start at the top
    2. Write down the problem
    3. Problem Solving Out Loud - Keep talking
    4. Don't try to come up with the right answer first, just one that works
    5. How to ask clarifying questions
  3. Basic Logic
  4. Problem Structure
  5. Recursion

##Unit Design## Students are given a number of minutes (decreasing each day) to complete several problems on paper in the lecture hall. After that number of minutes elapses, students who have completed their questions are asked to demonstrate it on the board. Lecturers go over the different strategies used, and critique the efficiency and effectiveness of the solution. TAs are needed to check the validity of student's work, as it is on paper. Lecturers should strive to talk over the skills covered by each exercise, because some solutions to come problems may miss key concepts.

Exercises are meant to get students comfortable with solving problems without an IDE present, with making mistakes, and with timed problem solving. Social pressure should be applied, but is not the main focus of this unit.

##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### Programming Interviews w/Noah Kindler
###Books### Programming Interviews Exposed
Cracking The Coding Interview Big O Notation Explained

###Other Resources### 140 Google Interview Questions
Math-heavy Big O Notation
Big-O Cheat Sheet

###Bonus Material###

  1. List Sorting
    1. Sorts
      1. bubble
      2. merge
      3. quick
    2. Partial Sorts
      1. find top ten
      2. pivot
  2. Using Math To Solve Problems
    1. Prime Numbers
      1. return the nth prime
      2. isPrime
    2. Factorials
      1. n Factorial
      2. List Prime Factors
      3. Greatest Common Factor
    3. Fibonacci
      1. Fibonacci with recursion
      2. Fibonacci iteratively
      3. Fibonacci with caching

Data Structures

##Exercises##

  1. The Answer Is Dictionaries
    1. find if there are pairs
    2. Are all the letters from string a in string b?
    3. Roman Numerals
  2. How To Write Your Own Hash Map
  3. Stacks
  4. Queues
  5. Heaps
  6. Keeping Your Data Organized
    1. Variables
      1. Keeping Pointers
      2. Keeping Counters
    2. Lists
      1. Using Lists as Stacks
      2. Using Lists as Queues
    3. Dictionaries
      1. When to use a dictionary
      2. Hash Map Properties
    4. Sets
      1. Using Sets instead of Hash Maps
      2. Using Sets and Length

##Concepts##

  • Data structure as it relates to efficiency
    • Space
    • Time
  • Objects

##Unit Design## These exercises are longer and should be done in breakout sessions on various whiteboards. Emphasis is more on problem solving than speed, and making conceptual leaps out loud. This unit is designed to introduce social pressure while making conceptual leaps. Experimenting with group size should be done to find the right mix of pressure and even coverage of problems to students. Problems should be done in sets of increasing difficulty, so weaker students should attempt the early problems, and stronger students should attempt the later problems.

Weaker students during this time will get the help they need with problem solving in general, and do not need the additional efficiency and complexity training that stronger students need, as they will typically end up in interviews where completing the problem presented in the interview is sufficient.

Stronger students should focus their efforts on understanding the efficiency and complexity of problems that "build" on the concepts that the weaker students solve, as they will be more apt to face tougher interview questions with more room to express efficiency and understanding.

##Suggested Reading## Stacks Queues ###Books###

###Relevant Exercises###

###Other Resources###

Linked Lists, Trees, Graphs

  1. Linked Lists
    1. Find Tail
    2. Find Loops
    3. Find Kth Element
  2. Trees
    1. DFS
    2. BFS
    3. Binary Search a. Largest element b. 5th largest Efficiency
    4. Red-Black Trees
    5. Equality a. total value of data b. actual equality
  3. Graphs (optional)

##Concepts##

  • Linked Lists
    • Nodes *Trees
    • Nodes
    • Recursion
  • Graphs
  • Objects
  • Object References
  • Diagramming

##Unit Design## Problems here are designed to reintroduce students to Object Oriented Programming, as they likely have not written much in the way of classes outside of an ORM. It will remind them that Objects are a data structure unto themselves. It it also meant to introduce students to more complex algorithms, and graph problems. Many students may have tackled graph-style problems in their projects, but have likely used a library that handled data structures for them, so will need to be reintroduced to these concepts.

Weaker students will be mostly focused on understanding the difference between an object and a reference, whereas stronger students will be more focused on complex structures such as red-black trees and graphs.

##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### Object Oriented Programming Lecture ###Books###

###Relevant Exercises###

###Other Resources### Linked Lists
Implementing a Linked List
Trees
Trees as a data structure (Wikipedia)
Graphs

OOP Concepts

  1. Building
    1. Card games
    2. Chess
    3. RoShamBo
    4. Tic Tac Toe
  2. Vocab
    1. Encapsulation
    2. Polymorphism
    3. Inheritance
    4. Composition
  3. Patterns
    1. Inheritence
    2. Composite
    3. Chain of Responsibility
    4. Observer

##Concepts##

  • Classes
  • Object Instantiation
  • Syntax
  • Program Structure

##Unit Design## Students by this time should be more comfortable with creating classes and objects, and so should branch out into different patterns of design, and know their names. Though this unit is not extensive enough to have students fully understand every type of OOP pattern, they should be familiar with Inheritence, Composite, potentially Chain of Responsibility and potentially Observer, as both are becoming more widely used in various web frameworks.

Weaker students may not be able to complete the latter portions of this unit, but should understand how to use classes. ##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### Object Oriented Programming Lecture ###Books###

###Relevant Exercises###

###Other Resources### Design Patterns by Type (Wikipedia)

Longer Problems

  1. Multiple Functions
    1. Given a set of coin denominators, find the minimum number of coins to give a certain amount of change.
    2. Given an array, i) find the longest continuous increasing subsequence. ii) find the longest increasing subsequence. 3.Predictive Text / Spell Checker
    3. Shunting yard (roman numerals, prefix notation)

##Concepts##

  • Stubbing Functions
  • Problem Solving in Multiple Steps
  • Syntax "looseness" for whiteboarding problems

##Unit Design## By now students typically have difficulty envisioning problems that require more than one function to solve, or don't involve recursion or objects. This section is intended to remind students that composing functions and their use took up the bulk of their work to date, and that frequently whiteboarding problems are easier to solve if they break them down into smaller functions. This unit is generally intended to help their whiteboarding strategy and so the placement of this unit is more about where the student is and less about conceptual similarity to other units.

The difficulty of this unit should restore the confidence of students struggling with OOP concepts as well, and should help students who have difficulty breaking down large problems by having them start by deciding which functions they will need to solve the problem.

This module should also introduce syntax looseness - shortening of variable names, not bothering to write boilerplate code, and should make students comfortable with working through a large problem on a whiteboard by intentionally choosing what to complete, and what to demonstrate mastery of verbally. ##Suggested Reading## ###Videos###

###Books###

###Relevant Exercises###

###Other Resources###

Brain Teasers

  1. Estimation
    1. How many jelly beans in a jar? in a house? in a 747?
  2. Problems that are Programming
    1. 100 story tower, you have two boxes, find the lowest floor you can drop boxes from
    2. 100 bottles of wine, one is poisoned - you have an hour, poison takes an hour, fewest number of servants
  3. Other Problems
    1. box with water and a boat, throw something off boat - water level rise or fall or stay the same?
    2. fox, sheep, wheat
    3. lightbulb in a house - feel the lightbulb
    4. 3000 apples - truck driver eats an apple every meter, go 1000 meters, how many apples can make it?
    5. the mouse - where is the randomly moving mouse?
  4. Problems in the Real World

##Unit Design## Brain Teasers as a module is designed to familiarize students with the process of solving something that does not involve using code. Problems around estimation, order of magnitude, and problems that involve computer science concepts without computers. Teaching students to spot computer science problems in the real world will help them come across better in interviews, and teach them not to get stuck by problems whose solution is not obvious. The idea of real-world problems being solved mathematically will be best absorbed by students with a strong math background, but all students should be able to benefit from this unit.

##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### Some Video ###Books###

###Relevant Exercises###

###Other Resources###

Kahn Academy Basic Algebra Linear Algebra Applied Math Vi Hart Videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4MSN6IImpI&list=SPF7CBA45AEBAD18B8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-e8fzqv3CE&list=PLC20F52B96F3E8206

Pairing - review

  1. Pairing on code
  2. Pairing on TDD
  3. Pairing on a codebase

##Unit Design## This is less a module and more a suggestion to our students to pair with their mentors, and what they should do on their own to study.

##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### ###Books### ###Relevant Exercises### ###Other Resources###

Technology

  1. How does the internet work?
    1. DNS, Routers, Hubs, Request/Response, HTTP / TCP/IP (deep as you can get)
  2. What is the request / response lifecycle / what happens when you type google.com into a browser?
  3. GET v POST
    1. Explain the difference
    2. Know the syntax of an HTTP Request
    3. Understand what a post body looks like / URL Encoding

##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### Some Video ###Books### ###Relevant Exercises### ###Other Resources###

Databases

  1. Schema Design
    1. Create schema for a book-trading website
    2. Create a schema for a kingdom that exports many kinds of fruit and vegetables 1a. Add tarrifs 1b. Add suppliers 1c. Add imports 1d. Write some queries against these tables
    3. Create a schema for a ticket sales website
  2. Write SQL Queries
    1. Get current LTV (lifetime value) of a user by totaling their orders
    2. Get LTV of all users by state
    3. Get LTV of all users that have come in through a certain refferal campaign
  3. Indexes & Constraints

##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### ###Books### ###Relevant Exercises### ###Other Resources###

Software Engineering

  1. Explain MVP
  2. Explain Functional Programming
  3. Explain OOP
  4. Explain Dynamic Programming

##Suggested Reading## ###Videos### ###Books### ###Relevant Exercises### ###Other Resources###

Resources:
http://www.impactinterview.com/2009/10/140-google-interview-questions/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(data_structure)
https://github.com/flatiron-school/prework.flatironschool.com
https://github.com/nyghtowl/Interview_Problems
https://github.com/mmihaljevic/algortihms_challenges
Topcoder.com

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This is interview prep curriculum, for post-bootcamp preparation for interviews.

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