How I started coding from 0 and cracked Amazon, Google & Microsoft

hi everyone my name is AIS and in this video I will share with you how I went from having almost zero knowledge in coding to cracking interviews at companies like Amazon Google and Microsoft I will take you through my entire coding Journey including the interviews I gave resources I used and the mistakes I made during my preparation when I started college in 2013 I had very little knowledge of computer science and I had never even heard the word coding before during the first semester I didn't make any effort to learn coding and spend most of my time playing video games like FIFA then came the second semester and this was when I was first introduced to the world of coding through a course called C programming due to my lack of experience in programming I struggled to learn even the basic concepts in C and got scared every time I saw those recursive functions and pointers I somehow managed to pass the exams but he still knew very little about coding at that time I been believed that HTML was a programming language during the summer vacation after my second semester I taught myself python by following tutorial that I downloaded on my laptop since I was new to coding I did what every beginner does watching tutorials after tutorial without actually building anything on my own I managed to create a few interesting projects including a video game called pong but most of the code I wrote was just replicating what I seen in the tutorials even though I hadn't yet started building things on my own learning python helped me understand what was possible through coding I started to develop some interest towards it in the third semester of college we had a course called objectoriented programming also called oops I don't know why they called it objectoriented programming when all they taught was Java syntax instead of fundamental oops Concepts like design patterns during this semester I only Java and spent most of my time understanding its complex syntax by the end of third semester I had learn three programming languages but hadn't solve a single coding challenge the types of problems typically asked in the interviews till this point I had no idea that to crack interviews I needed to be good at this thing called data structures and algorithms but in the fourth semester I studied a course with the same name the course felt quite theoretical and I struggled to understand even some of the basic concepts like bigo notation this was in 2015 and back then YouTube wasn't filmed with cing to tutorials so I did what any sensible person would do I bought a book the first book I purchased on this topic was introduction to algorithms by Corman however I couldn't move beyond the first chapter because it contained too much mathematics after some exploration I found pdf version of another book called data structures and algorithms Made Easy by nasima kumachi I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and it included interview style problems at the end of each chapter which I found very helpful I read this book in C language but it's also available in other languages like Java and python if you are just starting out with data structures and algorithms I highly recommend this book after reading this book I wasn't sure what to do next many of my classmates were actively doing this thing called competive programming I knew nothing about it but I soon discovered few platforms where I could practice coding challenges and apply some of the DSA concept I had learned in the course to make my life easier I switched to C++ since it has a STL library for common data structures and algorithms after learning C+ plus I started practicing coding challenges on websites like spa and code forces after spending few weeks on these these platforms I became addicted to competitive coding and solve a lot of problems while earlier I used to spend most of my time playing FIFA now I replaced it with solving coding challenges I also started participating in contest on code forces every week a big mistake I made was not revisiting the problems I couldn't solve during the contest now one question that people often ask is do you need competitive coding to crack interviews in my opinion the answer is no but practicing on these platforms can improve your problem solving speed which can be useful during interviews now being good at coding is one thing and cracking interviews is another although I got decent at coding through all this practice I had no idea how to approach problems during interviews during the fifth and sixth semester multiple companies visited my college for internships but I wasn't selected by any of them I passed the online coding round of those companies but failed badly in the interviews due to lack of preparation I didn't consider applying for an off tampus internship and relied solely on College as a result I had no internship experience to include in my resume at the end of the third year next semester was the place season now for preparing for my interviews I searched online on what is the best way to prepare for coding interviews and came across this platform called lead code before lead code I mostly solve competitive coding style problems and didn't knew that problems asked in the interviews are different compared to what I had been practicing I soled around 180 problems on lead code which was mostly easy and medium problems this was back in 2016 and that time there were only limited number of problems on lead code unlike what you see now one major mistake I made while practicing on lead code was not dedicating enough time to his problem I focused more on increasing my problem count rather than thoroughly learning from each one also I didn't revisit the problems I couldn't solve in one attempt which leted me to forget the approach as my fourth year began the placement season kicked off many companies visited my college including Amazon and Microsoft the typical process for most companies involved an online coding round followed by three to four rounds of interviews while I managed to clear the coding round for many companies I struggled during the interviews I faced rejection in the final interview rounds at companies like Amazon Walmart and nanic after EXP experiencing tense of rejections I begin to lose hope and fear that I would go unplaced during the placement season but I was fortunate enough to clear the interviews at Morgan Stanley after completing my seventh semester I did a six month internship at a company called semantic I didn't have much work to do there so I used that time to prepare and apply for Google summer of code also called gso I created G with just one month of serious preparation if you want me to make a video on how to cck gck in a all time let me know in the comments in August 2017 I started working at Morgan Stanley and did consider leaving until 1 and a half years had passed in 2019 I made the decision to change jobs and started practicing on lead code the work at morgage tle was pretty chill and I had loads of free time after grinding lead code for 2 months I began applying to companies I interviewed at flip cart SGI D saww but did not succeed in any of them the main reason for these interview failures was my lack of practice in an interview setting believe me solving problems in an interview is very different from solving them in the comfort of your room in an interview you only have 45 minutes to 1 hour and you're constantly being wased by another person which makes it even more challenging that's why it's important to practice mock interviews a great platform to do that is pram after failing these interviews I tried to learn from them and made a conscious effort to avoid repeating the same mistakes in my next interview finally I was able to clear the interviews at Amazon and received an offer the interview process at Amazon consisted of a total of four coding rounds focused on data structures and algorithms I joined Amazon in September of 2019 during my time at Amazon I learned a lot met many talented people and got a taste of how code is written at Big tech companies after a year and a half I decided to explore new job opportunities at the start of 2021 I started interviewing again since I had already prepared for interviews in the past I didn't need much time this time around I revised the fundamentals and rested up on my data structures and algorithms I watch William P data structures playlist and Tsar r videos on graphs and dynamic programming those were really helpful during my preparation after that I started practicing on lead code and revised the problems I solved previously since I was applying for a senior role this time I also needed to prepare for system design for that I went through this course called grocking the system design interview on educative.io I went through this course three times to ensure I fully understand the concepts remember repetition is the key for learning along with this course I followed YouTube channels like tusar Roy te damis and cod Klay to gain a deeper understanding of system design after a month of preparation I started applying to companies I interviewed at multiple companies and finally received offers from Microsoft and Adobe during that time a Google recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn and asked if I was interested in interviewing since I wasn't prepare at that level I asked for 3 weeks of preparation time the recruiter agreed and scheduled my telephonic round 3 weeks later I performed poorly in that round and couldn't answer a simple problem because I didn't approach it correctly I jumped directly into solving the problem instead of fully understanding what the problem was asking and trying out a few input and output examples as a result I got rejected however I was just still happy to have offers from other companies I finally joined Adobe after 6 months the same Google recruiter contact Ed me again this time I asked for 1 and a half months of preparation time I went through Google's last 6 months of interview questions and solved most of them then came the interview I cleared the telephonic round and moved to Virtual on-site rounds there were total of four coding rounds and one behavioral round I did poorly in the first coding round but the rest of the round went well many people believe that Google asked very difficult questions but that is not true most of the questions I encountered were of medium difficulty few days after my last round the recruiter informed me that the overall feedback was positive and I moved to the team matching stage as conversation with four teams but unfortunately my process didn't progress further later I found out that they were not recommending hiring me for the level at which I had interviewed in 2022 I was happily working at Adobe and I had no plans of switching jobs however in July of that year another recruiter from Google reached out to me on LinkedIn and asked if I was interested in interviewing for L4 software engineering role I requested one month of preparation time and after that I had my first telephonic round it didn't go very well the recruiter gave me another chance with the second telephonic round which went went well and I moved to Virtual on-site interviews I went through a total of four interview rounds including three Golding rounds and one behavioral round a few weeks after the interview the recruiter informed me that the feedback was positive but around the same time Google announced the hiring freeze and my process was paused but during the same time I was also interviewing for sd2 role at Amazon in the US the interviews at Amazon went very well and I was offered the role if you are interested in learning more about my Amazon Interview experience you can check out this other video if you don't know already I actively post on LinkedIn about my experience and share tips and resources related to coding and interviews so feel free to connect with me there I hope you enjoyed this video if you have any questions or you would like me to make a video on any other topic please let me know in the comments I wish you good luck and I will see you in the next video

Channel: Ashish Pratap Singh

Views: 421,189

Keywords: how to learn coding, coding, programming, coding interview, google interview, amazon interview, microsoft interview, leetcode, faang, faang interview preparation, how to learn coding fast, how to learn coding for beginners, how to learn programming

Id: SkT8tDy45fU

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023