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Recommended materials for cracking your next technical interview

Curiosity: How can we systematically prepare for technical interviews? What resources should we retrieve to maximize our chances of success?

Technical interviews require comprehensive preparation across multiple areas. This curated list of recommended materials will help you retrieve the knowledge and practice needed to excel in coding, system design, behavioral, and OOD interviews.

Interview Preparation Roadmap

graph TB
    A[Technical Interview Prep] --> B[Coding]
    A --> C[System Design]
    A --> D[Behavioral]
    A --> E[OOD]
    A --> F[Mock Interviews]
    A --> G[Job Applications]
    
    B --> B1[Neetcode]
    B --> B2[Leetcode]
    B --> B3[Cracking the Coding Interview]
    
    C --> C1[System Design Interview Books]
    C --> C2[Grokking System Design]
    C --> C3[Designing Data-Intensive Apps]
    
    D --> D1[Tech Interview Handbook]
    D --> D2[A Life Engineered]
    D --> D3[STAR Method]
    
    E --> E1[InterviewReady]
    E --> E2[OOD by Educative]
    E --> E3[Head First Design Patterns]
    
    F --> F1[Interviewing.io]
    F --> F2[Pramp]
    F --> F3[Meetapro]
    
    G --> G1[LinkedIn]
    G --> G2[Monster]
    G --> G3[Indeed]
    
    style A fill:#e1f5ff
    style B fill:#fff3cd
    style C fill:#d4edda
    style D fill:#f8d7da
    style E fill:#e7d4f8
    style F fill:#d1ecf1
    style G fill:#ffe5e5

๐Ÿ“ Coding Interview Preparation

Retrieve: Master data structures and algorithms for coding interviews.

ResourceTypeDescriptionFocus
NeetcodeOnline PlatformStructured problem-solving pathโฌ†๏ธ Systematic learning
LeetcodeOnline PlatformExtensive problem databaseโฌ†๏ธ Practice
Cracking the Coding InterviewBookClassic interview prep guideโฌ†๏ธ Fundamentals

Key Topics:

  • Data structures (arrays, linked lists, trees, graphs)
  • Algorithms (sorting, searching, dynamic programming)
  • Problem-solving patterns
  • Time/space complexity analysis

๐Ÿ—๏ธ System Design Interview

Retrieve: Learn to design scalable, distributed systems.

ResourceTypeDescriptionFocus
System Design Interview Book 1, 2BooksBy Alex Xu, Sahn Lamโฌ†๏ธ Real-world systems
Grokking the System DesignCourseBy Design Guruโฌ†๏ธ Step-by-step approach
Designing Data-Intensive ApplicationsBookBy Martin Kleppmannโฌ†๏ธ Deep understanding

Key Topics:

  • Scalability patterns
  • Database design
  • Caching strategies
  • Load balancing
  • Distributed systems

System Design Process:

graph LR
    A[Requirements] --> B[Capacity Estimation]
    B --> C[API Design]
    C --> D[Database Design]
    D --> E[System Architecture]
    E --> F[Scaling]
    F --> G[Final Design]
    
    style A fill:#e1f5ff
    style E fill:#fff3cd
    style G fill:#d4edda

๐Ÿ’ฌ Behavioral Interview

Retrieve: Prepare for culture fit and behavioral questions.

ResourceTypeDescriptionFocus
Tech Interview HandbookGitHub RepoComprehensive behavioral guideโฌ†๏ธ Question bank
A Life EngineeredYouTubeInterview preparation channelโฌ†๏ธ Real experiences
STAR MethodFrameworkSituation, Task, Action, Resultโฌ†๏ธ Structured answers

STAR Method Framework:

ComponentDescriptionExample
SituationContext and backgroundโ€œAt my previous companyโ€ฆโ€
TaskYour responsibilityโ€œI was tasked withโ€ฆโ€
ActionWhat you didโ€œI implementedโ€ฆโ€
ResultOutcome and impactโ€œThis resulted inโ€ฆโ€

๐ŸŽฏ Object-Oriented Design (OOD) Interview

Retrieve: Master OOD principles and design patterns.

ResourceTypeDescriptionFocus
InterviewReadyPlatformOOD interview prepโฌ†๏ธ Practice problems
OOD by EducativeCourseObject-oriented design courseโฌ†๏ธ Concepts
Head First Design PatternsBookDesign patterns guideโฌ†๏ธ Patterns

Key Topics:

  • SOLID principles
  • Design patterns (Singleton, Factory, Observer, etc.)
  • Class relationships
  • UML diagrams
  • System design for OOD

๐ŸŽญ Mock Interviews

Innovate: Practice with real interview scenarios.

PlatformFeaturesBest For
Interviewing.ioAnonymous practiceโฌ†๏ธ Real interviewers
PrampPeer-to-peer practiceโฌ†๏ธ Free practice
MeetaproProfessional mock interviewsโฌ†๏ธ Expert feedback

Benefits:

  • Real interview experience
  • Feedback on performance
  • Time management practice
  • Confidence building

๐Ÿ’ผ Job Application Platforms

Retrieve: Where to find and apply for technical positions.

PlatformTypeFeatures
LinkedInProfessional Networkโฌ†๏ธ Networking, job postings
MonsterJob Boardโฌ†๏ธ Job listings
IndeedJob Aggregatorโฌ†๏ธ Comprehensive listings

Application Strategy:

graph LR
    A[Build Profile] --> B[Network]
    B --> C[Apply]
    C --> D[Follow Up]
    D --> E[Interview]
    E --> F[Offer]
    
    style A fill:#e1f5ff
    style C fill:#fff3cd
    style F fill:#d4edda

Preparation Timeline

PhaseDurationFocusResources
Foundation2-3 monthsData structures, algorithmsLeetcode, Neetcode
System Design1-2 monthsArchitecture, scalabilityBooks, courses
Behavioral2-4 weeksSTAR method, storiesHandbook, practice
OOD1-2 monthsDesign patterns, principlesBooks, platforms
Mock InterviewsOngoingReal practiceInterviewing.io, Pramp

Key Takeaways

Retrieve: Successful technical interview preparation requires systematic study across coding, system design, behavioral, and OOD areas, combined with consistent practice through mock interviews.

Innovate: By following a structured preparation plan using these recommended resources, you can build confidence, improve problem-solving skills, and increase your chances of landing your dream technical role.

Curiosity โ†’ Retrieve โ†’ Innovation: Start with curiosity about interview success, retrieve knowledge from these resources, and innovate your preparation strategy based on your strengths and weaknesses.

Next Steps:

  • Assess your current level
  • Create a study schedule
  • Start with fundamentals
  • Practice consistently
  • Do mock interviews
  • Apply to positions

Question for You: What are your favorite interview preparation resources?

 Tech Interview

Translate to Korean

๋‹ค์Œ ๊ธฐ์ˆ  ๋ฉด์ ‘์„ ์œ„ํ•œ ์ถ”์ฒœ ์ž๋ฃŒ

์ฝ”๋”ฉ

  • ๋‹ˆํŠธ์ฝ”๋“œ
  • ๋ฆฌํŠธ์ฝ”๋“œ
  • ์ฝ”๋”ฉ ์ธํ„ฐ๋ทฐ ์ฑ… ๊นจ๊ธฐ

์‹œ์Šคํ…œ ์„ค๊ณ„ ์ธํ„ฐ๋ทฐ

  • ์‹œ์Šคํ…œ ๋””์ž์ธ ์ธํ„ฐ๋ทฐ ๋ถ 1, 2 by Alex Xu, Sahn Lam
  • Design Guru์˜ ์‹œ์Šคํ…œ ์„ค๊ณ„ Grokking
  • ๋ฐ์ดํ„ฐ ์ง‘์•ฝ์  ์‘์šฉ ํ”„๋กœ๊ทธ๋žจ ๊ต์žฌ ์„ค๊ณ„

ํ–‰๋™๋ฉด์ ‘

  • ๊ธฐ์ˆ  ์ธํ„ฐ๋ทฐ ํ•ธ๋“œ๋ถ(Github ๋ฆฌํฌ์ง€ํ† ๋ฆฌ)
  • ๋ผ์ดํ”„ ์—”์ง€๋‹ˆ์–ด๋ง(YT)
  • STAR ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ•(์ผ๋ฐ˜ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ•)

OOD ์ธํ„ฐ๋ทฐ

  • ์ธํ„ฐ๋ทฐ ์ค€๋น„
  • ๊ต์œก์ ์ธ OOD
  • ํ—ค๋“œ ํผ์ŠคํŠธ ๋””์ž์ธ ํŒจํ„ด ๋ถ

๋ชจ์˜ ๋ฉด์ ‘

  • ์ธํ„ฐ๋ทฐ
  • ์œ ๋ž‘
  • ๋ฏธํƒ€ํ”„๋กœ

๊ตฌ์ง ์‹ ์ฒญ

  • ๋งํฌ๋“œ์ธ
  • ๊ดด๋ฌผ
  • ์ฐธ์œผ๋กœ

๋‹น์‹ ์—๊ฒŒ: ๊ฐ€์žฅ ์ข‹์•„ํ•˜๋Š” ๋ฉด์ ‘ ์ค€๋น„ ์ž๋ฃŒ๋Š” ๋ฌด์—‡์ž…๋‹ˆ๊นŒ?

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