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I’m sure this is a good book. However, you would think a book on software would have what language it is focused on readily available. It does not. I had to do research to figure it out… after purchasing it. Very annoying. For your info, its in java. If you’re not a java developer it’s useless til you decide you want to learn java. And by that time you’re probably working and don’t need an interview prep book. PUT THE LANGUAGE ON THE FRONT PAGE
Here, in Silicon Valley, it seems like EVERYONE knows this book. It seems like everyone who comes here from India and China knows it as well. I’m from Europe, and I had never heard of it. So I bought it. I read it. And I did some of the many excercises. Did I learn anything? Not really. Is it good for interview training? Absolutely, yes.PROs:+ The first few chapters are short recaps on what you should already know.+ There are hundreds of interview-like questions. Very algorithm-oriented. Which is indeed what tech companies ask.+ This book might indeed improve your chances at Apple, Google, Facebook, etc…CONs:- This book will NOT make you a better software engineer. It only helps you at the interview-part.
I threw it away. Not just because not all the solutions are correct; not just because it’s not even remotely adequate preparation for a coding interview; but because of both of those things, and the fact that I resent the entire premise of being asked stupid coding puzzles that have nothing to do with the job at hand.I’ve interviewed at Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, Oracle, Microsoft and a dozen other smaller companies. Got rejected from some, got offers from others, and I’m now an engineering manager at one of them. I still think coding interviews are a scourge on this industry that select for the types of people that study coding problems instead of how to write and deliver good software.
Proven – no one cares how good you are when interviewing with Major Tech Companies. Your real skills for future work and interview process have close to nothing in common. Everyone in Main Tech looks at how good have you studied this book. I find it awful, but if you want to land such a job – this book is a must. Book itself is good though if you just want to cover/refresh a list of IT topics.
As programming interview prep books go, this one is currently the most popular of the bunch. It’s OK, in that you’ll find material to practice for the whiteboard interviews that are prevalent at big tech companies. But let’s be honest: this whole ecosystem is toxic. Here’s a lady who worked for a few years at Google (that’s right — she worked for a *few* years, and only interned at those other big names she mentioned), and has parlayed that rather limited work experience into an entire lifestyle business, where she coaches programmers on how to pass interviews. That should tell you something important: the interview-prep industry has completely decoupled itself from the actual job of programming!I’ve been writing software for a long time, and I’m competent at my job. I’ve worked at some well-known companies, and I’ve interviewed a LOT of people. But I’m here to tell you that even I can’t pass one of these interviews without studying. That’s a bad thing. If the goal of an interview is to identify competent programmers, we’ve gone far, far off the rails with these kinds of interviews.But of course, that isn’t (entirely) the author’s fault. She’s just a cog in the machine, and profits by perpetuating it. Because the presence of books like these create a vicious cycle: prep book gets written; interviewees study/memorize answers; interviewers make questions “harder” to compensate; new book gets written! It never ends. The grinder continues to turn, and whereas ten years ago you could get a good job with some string or linked-list manipulation questions, now you’ve got people who consider whiteboard coding of topcoder elite questions to be the baseline measurement of programmer competency. That’s nuts.You’ll even run into lazy interviewers who take questions directly from this book, which is the ultimate in stupidity: if “good” candidates have prepared from the book, and you ask questions directly from the book, what are you really accomplishing, other than a test of memorization skills? And yet, this is distressingly common. I’ve seen it myself. I’ve had recruiters from major tech companies send me pages from this book so that I can “prepare” for their interviews. What now?This kind of crap only stops if the more senior amongst us simply *refuse* to do it anymore. New grads have no leverage, so it’s up to the rest of us to stand up and demand change. If you work at a company, please, INSIST that your interview process avoid questions from this book. If you interview programmers, please, stick to questions that demonstrate actual day-to-day work competency. And yes, if you’re interviewing and you have the leverage, stand up to companies that try to abuse you with this kind of demeaning nonsense.If we are to be professionals, we have to demand the career respect afforded to professionals. That includes not being treated like children when we are interviewed.
This got me through four interviews, and I got an offer from each one. I would recommend this to anyone, with two big provisos: (1) if you’re going for a domain specific position like compilers, make sure to read up on those separately; and (2) focus on the Moderate problems. The Hard problems frankly weren’t asked and it was much more important to have the whiteboard coding method down.
After getting into the book, I realized it was missing ~50 pages. Chapters 8-16. I contacted the publisher about 2 weeks ago, but got no response.
I graduated with a CS degree in 2014 and recently decided to find a new job. The first 200 or so pages are a great review for someone who wants to brush up on all of the “must-know” topics such as data structures, search algorithms, algorithmic complexity, sorting, etc. There are a handful of questions specific to each of these chapters.After the chapters comes a slough of example interview questions rated as easy/medium/hard, each with hints that interviewers might provide if you were to get stuck as well as a solution.Interviewing with companies can be a pretty grueling process so if you want a much better chance of landing the job the first time, I would highly recommend this book.
Looking for a change in Job?Want to crack all the codes thrown towards you?Not good at the advanced techniques of coding?Then, This book is for you.P.S.: This is not for Beginners. You should be familiar with the basics first
I’ve rated this as a four star as the book seems to be well written. I only got so far before I gave up.The reason for this is : I graduated and was looking for developer jobs and thought this book would be great!Perhaps it is great for someone with a few years experience that’s looking for a senior developer role.As a junior this was out with my skill set or knowledge l.The book is well written don’t get me wrong and you will learn a lot from it but I think it would require sitting down and making this a study book.No doubt I will go back to this in a few years when I have a far greater knowledge and can understand this
This book is great for computer science students or for anyone in a similar situation looking for a graduate job.I’ve used it to help me in securing jobs for my placement module as part of my degree (penultimate year) .It covers everything you would need to learn to prepare you for a serious interview with a large organisation such Google, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle etc…I’ve read it all and seen most of the examples come up in real interviews. Its very useful, I recommend reading it if you are serious in securing a role within a large software based organisation.Not only does it help with interviews but it will help you within university itself, considering you are a student. It covers various algorithms that most students will cover within university.tdlr; helps you secure a job and helps you study for uni.
This is the Indian Edition of this books. It doesn’t have all the chapters and topics. The picture shown is of the international edition. The seller is a fraud.I will strongly recommend the global edition.Though the binding is good and cover is also OK but the paper quality must be the deal-breaker for most of us. The paper is totally yellowish and of pretty cheap quality. in fact i doubt it to be PIRATED print. Also there is no hologram of the publisher which justifies my doubts.I would say the seller is definitely not good or may be he is a fraud, selling pirated books.
Pages from 107 to 118 missing, so no graphs and bit manipulation topics for me 🙂Other than that, some useful advices and approaches how to solve problems. But definitely it should not be seen as a single thing you need to do for interview preparation. It’s a good book but not a magic pill, and nothing is 🙂 Of course if you’ve already solved couple of hundreds problems on leetcode you’ll be bored.
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