Today, I completed 150 questions on Leetcode. Many say the journey becomes easier after the first 100 questions, and I can wholeheartedly agree. After crossing the 100-question mark, I noticed a significant improvement in my coding speed, which translated into better performance during screen interviews. What once felt like a daunting task has now become a gamified part of my daily routine.
My approach:
- Start with Blind 75: I began with the Blind 75 list, which covers fundamental topics. Initially, some problems took me over an hour to solve, but I soon realized this wasn’t sustainable.
- Time Boxing: I changed my approach by setting a limit of 30 minutes for each question because this is how much time actual interview will take for one question. When I cannot come up with a solution within that timeframe, I look at the video answer or editorial answer. After understanding the approach, I’d code it myself and mark the problem for future redo.
- Selective Focus Topics: I focus areas on Arrays, HashMap, Two Pointers, Tree, Graphs, DFS, and DFS as they are commonly asked in front-end, full-stack and backend interviews. I skipped Bit Manipulation and Dynamic Programming mostly because I haven’t received those questions during interviews partly due to luck. DP is hard and I will come to focus on this later.
4. Real Interviews: I interviewed some companies after Blind 75. I found that actual interviews were the best learning experience. They taught me how to manage stress and perform under the watchful eyes of an interviewer.
5. NeetCode 150 and Mock Interviews: I practiced more questions from NeetCode 150 related to Arrays, Stack, HashMap, Two Pointers, Tree, Graphs, DFS, and BFS. I continued conduct mock interviews with friends or Pramp.
Final Thought
Initially, I thought that front-end interviews wouldn’t require much Leetcode practice. I was wrong. Problems like tic-tac-toe, histogram, and grid traversal are directly applicable to front-end ReactJS questions. Practicing these problems significantly improved my coding efficiency in practical front-end scenarios.
