CRACKING
the
CODING INTERVIEW
189 PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS & SOLUTIONS
GAYLE L A A K M A N N MCDOWELL 6TH
Author of Cracking the PM Interview and Cracking the Tech Career
CRACKING
the
CODING INTERVIEW
G T H EDITION
A L S O BY GAYLE L A A K M A N N M C D O W E L L
CRACKING THE P M INTERVIEW
H o w TO L A N D A PRODUCT MANAGER JOB IN TECHNOLOGY
CRACKING THE T E C H CAREER
INSIDER ADVICE ON LANDING A JOB AT GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, APPLE, OR A N Y TOP TECH COMPANY
CRACKING
CODING INTERVIEW
6th Edition
189 Programming Questions and Solutions
GAYLE LAAKMANN MCDOWELL
Founder and CEO, CareerCup.com
CareerCup, LLC
Palo Alto, CA
C R A C K I N G T H E C O D I N G INTERVIEW, SIXTH E D I T I O N
Copyright © 2015 by CareerCup.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or me-
chanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing
from the author or publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published by CareerCup, LLC, Palo Alto, CA. Compiled Feb 10,2016.
For more information, contact support)®caieercup.com.
978-0-9847828-5-7 (ISBN 13)
For Davis and Tobin,
and all the things that bring us joy in life.
Introduction
Introduction 2
I. The Interview Process .4
Why? 4
How Questions are Selected 6
It's All Relative 7
Frequently Asked Questions 7
II. Behind the Scenes . .8
The Microsoft Interview 9
The Amazon Interview 10
The Google Interview 10
The Apple Interview 11
The Facebook Interview .12
The Palantir Interview 13
III. Special Situations 15
Experienced Candidates 15
Testers and SDETs 15
Product (and Program) Management 16
Dev Lead and Managers 17
Startups 18
Acquisitions and Acquihires 19
For Interviewers 21
IV. Before the Interview 26
Getting the Right Experience 26
Writing a Great Resume 27
Preparation Map 30
V. Behavioral Questions 32
Interview Preparation Grid 32
KnowYour Technical Projects 33
Responding to Behavioral Questions 34
So, tell me aboutyourself. 36
VI. BigO 38
An Analogy 38
Time Complexity 38
Space Complexity 40
Drop the Constants 41
Drop the Non-Dominant Terms 42
VIM Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition
Introduction
Multi-Part Algorithms: Add vs. Multiply 42
Amortized Time 43
Log N Runtimes 44
Recursive Runtimes 44
Examples and Exercises 45
Vlt. Technical Questions 60
How to Prepare 60
What You Need To Know 60
Walking Through a Problem 62
Optimize & Solve Technique #1: Look for BUD 67
Optimize & Solve Technique #2: DfY (Do It Yourself) 69
Optimizes Solve Technique #3: Simplify and Generalize 71
Optimized Solve Technique #4: Base Case and Build 71
Optimize & Solve Technique #5: Data Structure Brainstorm 72
Best Conceivable Runtime (BCR) 72
Handling Incorrect Answers 76
When You've Heard a Question Before 76
The "Perfect" Language for Interviews 76
What Good Coding Looks Like 77
Don't Give Up! 81
VIII. The Offer and Beyond 82
Handling Offers and Rejection 82
Evaluating the Offer 83
Negotiation 84
On the Job 85
IX. Interview Questions 87
Data Structures 88
Chapter 1 | Arrays and Strings 88
Hash Tables 88
ArrayList & Resizable Arrays 89
StringBuilder 89
Chapter 2 I Linked Lists 92
Creating a Linked List 92
Deleting a Node from a Singly Linked List 93
The "Runner" Technique 93
Recursive Problems 93
CrackingTheCodinglnterview.com 16th Edition VII
Introduction
Chapter 3 j Stacks and Queues 96
Implementing a Stack 96
Implementing a Queue 97
Chapter 4 | Trees and Graphs 100
Types of Trees 100
Binary Tree Traversal 103
Binary Heaps (Min-Heaps and Max-Heaps) 103
Tries (Prefix Trees) 105
Graphs 105
Graph Search 107
Concepts and Algorithms 112
Chapter 5 j Bit Manipulation 112
Bit Manipulation By Hand 112
Bit Facts and Tricks 112
Two's Complement and Negative Numbers 113
Arithmetic vs. Logical Right Shift 113
Common Bit Tasks: Getting and Setting 114
Chapter 6 j Math and Logic Puzzles 117
Prime Numbers 117
Probability 119
Start Talking 121
Develop Rules and Patterns 121
Worst Case Shifting 122
Algorithm Approaches 122
Chapter 7 | Object-Oriented Design 125
How to Approach 125
Design Patterns 126
Chapter 81 Recursion and Dynamic Programming 130
How to Approach 130
Recursive vs. Iterative Solutions 131
Dynamic Programming & Memoization 131
Chapter 9 | System Design and Scalability 137
Handling the Questions 137
Design: Step-By-Step 13S
Algorithms that Scale: Step-By-Step 139
KeyConcepts 140
VIM Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition
