8 Must Reads to Win Your Next Coding Interview (and Receive a Better Offer)

How to ace an interview is too general. For the coding interview, synonymous with fear and frustration alike, your interview preparation must be targeted in the right areas.

I have personally sat in over tech interview follow ups for over 2,000 candidates. I’ve listened to the good, bad, and in between from interviewers who are using their best judgement to size candidates up.

Before reading further, please read the following disclosure.

Disclosure: These aren’t interview tips and tricks. This is concrete, step by step data to preparing for an interview.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about your interview and how to prepare. Use these 3 steps as part of your interview preparation and strategy.

Also, you might see some affiliate links here. Rather rather than using them, you’re much better offer finding the text online here. Orrrrr click my Fiverr link now!

1. Understand, Define, and Gather Requirements

Nothing magical here. If you’re preparing for an interview, your better offer outlining a plan of attack before jumping into random items. Think of a puppy in the park: lost and looking around trying to grasp at one thing to focus on.

Write down your requirements, be sure you have the correct ones, and proceed.

2. Use Resources that Support Requirements, Not Conjecture

Everyone is an interview expert. Know it all, interview tips from your best friend who once heard about the types of interview questions Google asks, for example. Don’t follow their advice.

Refer back to your initial requirements and utilize real, accurate, and verifiable resources. Your best friend means well but their interview advice isn’t going to get you to the finish line. You might check Fiverr for some potential coaching on this.

3. Plan According to a Realistic Time Table

You aren’t dumb. Ok, you might be, but for all intents and purposes, let’s assume you are not for the time being.

With that, start with your interview date or target date and work backwards using your list from step one. If you need to prepare for your interview and focus on data structures and algorithms, understand the necessary timing commitment it will require and work backwards.

Bonus Step: Be honest with yourself in strengthening weak spots. Ask trustworthy peers for feedback in areas where you may need to focus on. Set your ego down.

This post is focused primarily on the resources needed to succeed in your tech interview. Major tech companies including the FANG companies will use similar variations of this. Gone are the days of the silly Google interview questions like, how many volleyballs could you fit in Dodger Stadium.

In no particular order, but likely familiarity, here they are in all of their interview preparation glory. I genuinely hope you kick ass.

8 Must Read Resources





Old faithful. Likely the book you’ve heard of before. It’s worth it. Loads of revised, updated, and peer sourced coding interview questions to review and consider for your interview. Instead of focusing on memorizing all of these questions, just focus on the ones most aligned with gaps in your knowledge base. Fundamentals and approach will be crucial.

You can check it out here.

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Perhaps a lesser known, but still super worth-reading resource. Elements of Programming Interviews helps with framework for your solutions as well as edge case testing strategies for your interview preparation. It’s a worthwhile computer science fundamentals read, without being overly concerned about 12,987,345,897,245 coding questions to memorize.

Check it out here.

This academic styled read will offer timeless OO design patterns. The book was first published in the early 90s, I think but offers still valid and applicable reference for your career and interview. Design patterns and approach have been a crucial point in interviewers assessing how a candidate approaches a problem, not always IF they answer the problem correctly or optimally.

Check it out here.

Academically trained? No? This is the read for you. Self-Taught Programmer tackles common pitfalls for engineers and developers who find themselves interviewing with major tech companies who are predisposed to interview the same CS grad over, and over, and over, and over. I know firsthand, SOME tech companies are valuing self taught and what are referred to as “non traditional” Software Engineer candidates at a higher level because of the diversity of thought they can bring to the company or team.

Check it out here.

If you’re tired, you probably need some REST [get it?] and you always need to have quality hygiene…code hygiene…

More often, I heard of candidates who had a solution and used the correct algorithm and adhered to it, fiercely. But that shit is difficult to read. It’s a mess. If shitty code still functions, it doesn’t make it not bad code.

Check it out here.

Specific to approach and being a guy who’s a big fan of visual stuff, this book is great. When you’re interviewing with someone and solving a problem together, improving your visual acumen can sometimes help tell your story in a more understandable way.

You can be the smartest person in the world, but if no one thinks you are, does that mean you are? Wow, that sentence sucked. Point being, get the interviewer to better understand your approach, solution, and strategy using visuals.

Check it out here.

Cool, so this book is clearly not a coding book. What in the fu….wait…is this a good resource? Yes. Product interviews tech candidates too. Understand how they’re preparing for interviews or treating interviews and you’ll know better how to communicate your thoughts/ideas/etc.

This isn’t a cover-to-cover read, but will have some insight into the minds of the interviewers you’re meeting. You’ve likely worked with a Product Manager, but having a better sense for how they got there will help.

Check it out here.

Surviving, cracking, winning, nailing…these adjectives are tiring. This new whiteboarding interview guide is useful resource.

You won’t always be in a whiteboard situation, but planning for it is absolutely crucial. Some companies are now offering laptops in place of whiteboards as an option for some candidates too. The concepts are still relevant and worth exploring further.

Check it out here.

Pro Tip: Pick 2, read for 20 minutes each, and decide if it’s helpful. If not, return to sender.

Those are the tools to help get you started. It’s a laundry list of content and definitely not meant to be all inclusive. Use these resources to support your interview preparation efforts as a supplement.

There are also sites like Leetcode.com I would recommend. Different than academic or text preparation, there are premium services they offer to help prepare you with a real timeline strategy.

Above all, I wish you the very best of luck in your coding interview. It isn’t the only thing to prepare for in a Software Engineering Interview, but it’s a start.