// Resources
My SWE Interview Prep
From a graduate with a CS degree. Through my college experience in freshmen year, sophomore year, junior year, and senior year.
// What does the interview process look like?
In the video, I describe the usual process I prepared for. The number of rounds can vary by company.
Internship
- 01Phone interview
- 021 technical interview
New grad
- 01Phone interview
- 022-3 technical rounds
The phone or behavioral interview usually comes before the technical interview. Be ready to talk about your projects, past work, and why you want to work at that company.
Interview rounds · 8:10// Freshmen year
New to CS interviews. Used a LOT of LeetCode problems with almost all being Easy’s. “Two Sum” is a great beginner problem.
Created projects and prepared my resume.
// Sophomore year
(where everything officially began)
3 BIG areas of focus for interviews: LeetCode, Applying, Mock Interviews
2-3 problems a day
I practiced 2-3 problems a day from LeetCode 150 and 75, revisiting them over time.
Each week had a theme: arrays and strings, binary search, or BFS and DFS.
Mock interviews
1-2 mock interviews a month.
Discord prep space
Computer Science Career Development (cscareers.dev)
// Two main types of company research
(prior to an interview)
Behavioral Research
Phone interviews
- Projects
- Past work
- “Why do you want to work here?”
Once I had a phone interview, I looked into the company’s principles, engineering principles, and teams I was interested in. I wanted to connect my experience and career plans to what the company actually does.
Technical Research
Question banks: LeetCode Premium, CSCD’s LeetCode bot.
Talk to someone who’s gone through the same technical interview.
View on Instagram// One month in advance
When I got the email for my DoorDash technical interview, I scheduled it about a month out. Here’s how I used those four weeks.
Weeks 1-2
General practice
Work through LeetCode 75 and LeetCode 150.
Weeks 3-4
Company-specific prep
Look up DoorDash’s question bank and reach out to friends who had done its technical interview.
That month came after months of consistent LeetCode practice. My suggested baseline was being able to solve a random medium problem within 40 minutes about 80% of the time.
My DoorDash prep plan · 4:36// Junior year
I went into junior year with two internships on my resume and barely did any interview prep. I assumed what worked sophomore year would carry me through. It didn’t.
Go lighter and start being a little picky on which companies you want to apply for.
BUT still continue to sharpen your Leetcode problem and mock interview skills. AND ACCELERATE THEM!!
If you’ve interned before, the companies you hear back from will probably have more technical interviews than the ones you heard from the year before.
View on Instagram// Senior year
I entered another New Grad Recruitment Cycle. Length is much longer and rigorous.
Expect 1 Phone Interview and 2-3 Technical Interviews.
New Grad Interview areas of focus: practice LONGER mock interviews, Leetcode 150 & 75, Question Banks.
In my experience, the technical level was similar to internship interviews, but the process was longer. I recommend more mock interviews to prepare for the mental fatigue of back-to-back rounds, especially by the third interview.
// Biggest takeaways
Practice...
- 01.LeetCode problems
- 02.Mock interviews
- 03.Company research