How I cracked my Google interviews - Leetcode tips, 5 strategies for success (Part 2)

I used to think if I know how to codee then I can crack a coding interview but boy I was wrong do you know how frustrating it is grinding leap code endlessly to prep for your coding interview I feel you I was in the same shoe two years ago when I was prepping for my Google coding interview I spent 288 hours practicing leak code which is equivalent to 10 days without sleeping and once I learned these five strategies I realized that you don't need to spend so many hours grinding lead code and you can get the same results and crack the Google interview here's how in case you don't know me my name is Gabrielle and I'm a software engineer at Google how to crack the Google interview and land a job as a software engineer your sister has joined Google and now it's your turn I would like to share five insights that are learned along the way that can help you to accelerate your progress and see results faster welcome to Google the first Insight is on coding interview prep strategy if there is one takeaway from this video it is the following identify the patterns in lead code question questions in case you haven't heard of lead code it is the coding interview prep platform in particular be crystal clear about the relationship between the problem's goal data structure of the input the algorithm that can solve the problem the optimization technique and finally the rationale of that optimization technique tip create a notion table like this one I made the columns are problem go data structure algorithm optimization detail rationale and link to questions that fall under this category I like notion because you can create color-coded tags so you can see the patterns between data structure algorithm and optimization easily for the optimization column break down the Brit Force algorithm and then an arrow meaning this Brit force can be optimized to the more efficient algorithm for example for this question with the goal of finding subarray sum that equals to Target K we can use the brute force of checking the sum of all possible sub arrays by Nest Loop which is o n Cube and optimize it to one pass but we save the prefix sum which is o n why do I stress so much about remembering how can we optimize an algorithm it's because in the Google interview it really requires you to optimize your solution bit by bit being able to know what are some strategies to optimize can make you think faster the second Insight is to identify templates of algorithms so that you just need to tweak it instead of inventing a new algorithm on the spot under time pressure which would make you a genius tip create a word doc that maps from data structure to algorithms similar to the notion table that I mentioned but this word doc is more detailed write a few bullet points of how the algorithm works the efficiency in bigo notation then copy and paste a template of the algorithm's code you can get templates from two places from lead code in the solution or discussion section or Geeks for geeks why do I suggest learning templates because it makes you incredibly fast to solve coding interview problems for example you immediately think of sliding window and the deck template when you see a substring coding question another tip use generic function names and variable names in your template so that you distill the gist of how the algorithm works for example this backtracking algorithm template has three steps place explore remove it is super readable and then you can further tailor and Define those functions in your specific lead code or coding problem the third strategy is track and reflect tip track your performance on each lead code question that you attempted with a simple Google sheet like this one I made the key fields are topic difficulty time taken date that you redo or review it successfully solved or not and reflection it is important to redo questions that you didn't get right the first time to make sure that you don't repeat the same mistakes this is what I did for questions that I de valuable as a word of encouragement you're not the only one struggling with Le code and we need to stay positive no matter how burnout we are with Le coding I took almost 2 hours for some questions which will make me fail the coding interview that is only 45 minutes long and that's why why I shared the previous strategy about learning templates because it can drastically speed up the process of coming up with a solution as well as coding the solution the second Insight is how to lead code like a pro lead code is an essential part of coding interview prep but it's also potentially a rabbit hole that you can spend loads of time with little results and so I wanted to share a few tips to keep your efforts focused and to maximize your learnings first please get leco premium subscription this video is not sponsored by Le CCO by the way although I hope so so the premium features make you more efficient and I would say it is worth it you earn so much more than the annual fee once you land the job some Theo premium features that I really value are you can select questions by company sort questions by prevalence Etc the second tip is to sort by topic companies followed by prevalence in this order for each data structure that I want to practice I click on the topic tag to see the list of questions and I prioritize the Google ones that appear most frequently in the past few months since it may be a trend how to strike a balance between covering more topics versus going in depth in each topic the trade-off between data structure topics bread and the death I try to know all topics but if I don't know how to do a second legal question in the same topic then I know it's time to study that topic in depth how to study I suggest watching a YouTube video by Abdul Bari who explains CS Concepts really clearly on whiteboard for example I watched some of his sorting algorithm some videos but it's a slippery slope of binging a lot of random Youtube videos If you go on YouTube be careful of that another way to study is to skim a chapter in a s RS book that show on screen although I find it sometimes a bit too theoretical for my need the last tip for lead Cod like a pro is to use lead code list or study plan for example this blind 75 flist is a good selection of 75 classic questions covering a variety of topics the third Insight is to keep a schedule how to squeeze time out of your day if you work work or study full time to prep for coding interviews it is tough I have to admit I try to do a bit of prep before I go to work and I spend most of my after work free time on weekdays and pretty much the whole weekend prepping what are the benefits of tracking every minute on this schedule keeping a record of how you spend your time keeps yourself accountable moreover you can sum up the number of hours you poured into interview prep broken down by categories such as lead Code Practice Test study and behavior Ro interview I spent a total of 377 hours which is equivalent to 15 full the fourth Insight is to do mock interviews there are three ways to do so first is use PRM PRM is a platform to schedule mock interviews with random people it works by pairing two people who want to do mock interviews at a specific time and you have half an hour to be the interviewer and then you swap Ros with a new question so both of you get the chance to be the interview Wii the upside is it is free and you can get a few of coding interview where you need to explain your thought process to the interviewer the downside is the question and Solutions on PRM are not as comprehensive as leak code and and the peers you get paired with may not have incentive to be a good interviewer the second way is to participate in Leal contests in case you don't know what Leal contests are there are competitions on Le code where they have around four newly released questions of increasing levels of difficulty you have some time limit I think it's 1 and a half hour and afterwards you get to see the ranking of everyone who participated their Solutions and learn from them it is good for trying to solve problems under time pressure If you struggle with time management however I think the downside is you have no control over the curation of the legal problems you might want to practice certain topics first participating in the legal contest would not move you closer to that goal the Third Way is to ask your friends for mock interviews which is what I did I was really lucky that I had a helpful friend who is a good sof engineer who offered me coding interviews if you're watching this video thank you my friend I'm very grateful for your time I recommend just choosing a legal question on your to-do list let your friend have some time to look at that legal question and the solution then in the mock interview ask your friend to pay the problem statement to a Google doc and you type your answer there the previous four insights are on coding interview prep so the fifth Insight moves on to be about how to Ace the googliness and Leadership interview so first of all what is googliness googliness is a miror of qualities and characteristics that Google seeks in its potential employees googliness is not officially defined but for my prep I use the following 12 criteria that I found and I'll show them on the screen for leadership know the Google's leadership assessment criteria inside out which I'll show on screen to prep for both of these qualities create a Google doc find some Behavior Ro and hypothetical questions online then write down examples of what you did or would do in different situations that align with those criteria to answer the questions tip I've cutor coded each of the criteria then in my answers I highlight the keywords that demonstrate the criteria in their respective colors this way those criteria get ingrain in me and I know how to act in any new situation that align with the googliness and Leadership criteria another tip is to watch YouTube videos by Jeff Hite who is a former Google recruiter he gives some good sample answers in his videos thank you for making it to the end of this video I hope you found it helpful and if you have any questions or suggestions for the next video please feel free to leave a comment if you're currently recruiting I wish you the best of luck and remember that The Best Is Yet To Come and I hope to see you at Google soon as co-workers see you soon in the next video bye

Channel: Giga Gab

Views: 10,193

Keywords: coding, leetcode, bigtech, datastructureandalgorithm

Id: 9FBrIRVPYMA

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024