It’s been said before, but software engineer interviews at FAANGs is its own skill set.
And while there’s a healthy debate surrounding their effectiveness, the reality is that these interviews are part of FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix) workplace culture.
As a result?
FAANG software engineer interview resources are blowing up in popularity.
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TLDR: Grokking the Coding Interview
🚀 Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions is an interactive interview prep course on Educative.io. 🚀
💥 It’s geared towards aspiring FAANG-level software engineers. 💥
🗺The course features 16 patterns that help you map a new problem to an already known problem. 🗺
From Leetcode to Codewars to HackerRank to AlgoExpert, more FAANG prep platforms seem to pop up weekly.
So what makes Grokking the Coding Interview different from those other FAANG prep resources?
Grokking the Coding Interview: Language Support
The coding playgrounds in Grokking feature environments available for Java, Python3 🐍, JavaScript and C++ right in the browser.
This feature alone not only saves you the step of setting up a coding environment, but if you’re only using one screen, you eliminate the need to click from app to app.
The Secret Sauce of Grokking the Coding Interview: 16 Patterns
Arguably one of the biggest advantages Grokking the Coding Interview has over other platforms like LeetCode is that it features a clear, succinct strategy that emphasizes 16 patterns.
In other words, it doesn’t just dive right into random coding problems and expect you to solve them.
Then, once you understand the pattern, you’ll be able to solve multiple problems using it.
You also get plenty of visual aids and other interactivity to help you. Including:
- 1000 code playgrounds
- 220 illustrations
- 125 challenges
- 184 lessons
Additionally, there’s a help section for each challenge if you get stuck.
Some of the 16 patterns you’ll learn include:
- Merge Intervals
- Two Pointers
- Sliding Window
- Tree Breadth First Search
- Two Heaps
- Subsets
- Top ‘K’ elements
- Topological Sort (Graph)
And many more.
Stumped? That’s expected. 😉 In addition to the help area, there’s also a solution snippet provided for each challenge.
Explore more inside this course with our video review:
Who could benefit from this course?
- Aspiring FAANG-level software engineers
Who should probably NOT take this course?
- Code newbies
- Jr. developers not applying to FAANGs or equivalent
How long does it take to finish Grokking the Coding Interview?
According to the course creators, Grokking takes about 50 hours to complete.
How much does it cost?
Educative.io offers a few different pricing options for Grokking the Coding Interview.
The first main option is a subscription.
You can choose a monthly, yearly, or two-year service. These subscriptions give you access to all of Educative.io’s hundreds of courses.
Subscription prices range from about $15 a month up to $60 per month.
Keep in mind, the annual plans are billed yearly.
Alternatively, Educative.io also sells their courses individually.
If you choose that option, this course costs around $80 for yearly access.
All in all, Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions is a feature-rich, practical, challenging course.
🚨 However, it isn’t for code newbies. It’s ideal for aspiring FAANG software engineers.
That said? In my opinion, this an insanely helpful FAANG-level interview prep resource.
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