Big Tech Coding Interview Framework – Pt 1. Inspect
An attempt of a framework for solving whiteboarding/Leetcode problems is helpful, and it should always invite us to ask what computer science pedagogy is missing. Any CS program worth its salt includes data structures and algorithms courses- they are simply fundamental elements of the discipline.<p>And yet, why are these interviews so difficult? I don't think it's simply an issue of many people having gone through these programs and failing to absorb or retain the material. Neither do I think there is a severe mismatch in the material covered and the interviews. Yes, some interview questions are awfully close to logic puzzles - having to know the two pointer trick for detecting cyclic graphs, what CS program covers that industry-specific technique? - but others are fundamental applications of trees, graphs, dynamic programming, etc.<p>Could it just be that academic CS doesn't approach solving problems in the same way as these interviews do? Are there meta-problem solving techniques that these courses simply don't cover? Heuristics that must be applied when one approaches a general problem before the topic is narrowed down? "Ah this involves a tree, ah this requires sorting, ah we should use a hash table?"