CRACKING the CODING INTERVIEW
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Contents

Now in the 6th edition, Cracking the Coding Interview gives you the interview preparation you need to get the top software developer jobs. This is a deeply technical book and focuses on the software engineering skills to ace your interview. The book is over 700 pages and includes 189 programming interview questions and answers, as well as other advice. 

VIEW FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS

The full list of topics are as follows:

The Interview Process
This section offers an overview on questions are selected and how you will be evaluated. What happens when you get a question wrong? When should you start preparing, and how? What language should you use? All these questions and more are answered.
  • Why?
  • How Questions are Selected
  • It's All Relative
  • Frequently Asked Questions

Behind the Scenes
Learn what happens behind the scenes during your interview, how decisions really get made, who you interview with, and what they ask you. Companies covered include Google, Amazon, Palantir, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.
  • The Microsoft Interview
  • The Amazon Interview
  • The Google Interview
  • The Apple Interview
  • The Facebook Interview
  • The Palantir Interview

Special Situations
This section explains the process for experience candidates, Program Managers, Dev Managers, Testers / SDETs, and more. Learn what your interviewers are looking for and how much code you need to know.
  • Experienced Candidates
  • Testers and SDETs
  • Program and Product Managers
  • Dev Leads and Managers
  • Start-Ups
  • Acquisitions and Acquihires
  • For Interviewers

Before the Interview
In order to ace the interview, you first need to get an interview. This section describes what a software engineer's resume should look like and what you should be doing well before your interview.
  • Getting the Right Experience
  • Building a Network
  • Preparation Map

Behavioral Preparation
Although most of a software engineering interview will be technical, behavioral questions matter too. This section covers how to prepare for behavioral questions and how to give strong, structured responses.
  • Interview Preparation Grid
  • Know Your Technical Projects
  • Responding to Behavioral Projects
  • So, tell me about yourself

Big O
This is a critical topic for an interview. In order to optimize your solution, you need to be able to discuss the efficiency of your algorithm.
  • An Analogy
  • Time Complexity
  • Space Complexity
  • Drop the Constants
  • Drop the Non-Dominant Terms
  • Multi-Part Algorithms: Add vs. Multiply
  • Amortized Time
  • Log N Runtimes
  • Recursive Runtimes
  • Examples and Exercises

Technical Questions (+ 5 Algorithm Approaches)

This section covers how to prepare for technical questions (without wasting your time) and teaches actionable ways to solve the trickiest algorithm problems. It also teaches you what exactly "good coding" is when it comes to an interview.
  • How to Prepare
  • What You Need To Know
  • Walking Through a Problem
  • Optimize & Solve Technique #1: Look for BUD
  • Optimize & Solve Technique #2: DIY (Do It Yourself)
  • Optimize & Solve Technique #3: Simplify and Generalize
  • Optimize & Solve Technique #4: Base Case and Build
  • Optimize & Solve Technique #5: Data Structure Brainstorm
  • Best Conceivable Runtime (BCR)
  • Handling Incorrect Answers
  • When You’ve Heard a Question Before
  • The “Perfect” Language for Interviews
  • What Good Coding Looks Like
  • Don’t Give Up!

The Offer and Beyond
  • Handling Offers and Rejection
  • Evaluating the Offer
  • Negotiation
  • On the Job

​189 Programming Questions and Answers

This section forms the bulk of the book. Each section opens with a discussion of the core knowledge and strategies to tackle this type of question, diving into exactly how you break down and solve it. Topics covered include: 
  • Arrays and Strings
  • Linked Lists
  • Stacks and Queues
  • Trees and Graphs
  • Bit Manipulation
  • Math and Logic Puzzles
  • Object-Oriented Design
  • Recursion and Dynamic Programming
  • Sorting and Searching
  • Scalability and Memory Limits
  • Testing
  • C and C++
  • Java
  • Databases
  • Threads and Locks
  • Assorted Moderate Problems
  • Assorted Hard Problems

For the widest degree of readability, the solutions are almost entirely written with Java (with the exception of C / C++ questions). A link is provided with the book so that you can download, compile, and play with the solutions yourself.

Changes from the Fourth Edition: The fifth edition includes over 200 pages of new content, bringing the book from 300 pages to over 500 pages. Major revisions were done to almost every solution, including a number of alternate solutions added. The introductory chapters were massively expanded, as were the opening of each of the chapters under Technical Questions. In addition, 24 new questions were added.

Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition is the most expansive, detailed guide on how to ace your software development / programming interviews.

View and download Cracking the Coding Interview, v6, Table of Contents.


WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

"I wish I had read this book 90 days ago. I wouldn't have blown a great job that I really wanted. This book goes beyond the usual answers to questions likely to be asked. Instead of telling you what to think it teaches you HOW to think. If I had read this book first and knew what was coming I think I would have nailed it."



- J. Braun, Amazon.com
"Bought this book 3 weeks before interview. Read the book twice with careful hand-writing practice on each question. Got Amazon offer. The interview had 4 questions and one was in the book."


- Larry, Amazon.com
"This book is a must-have for any interview candidate. Not only does it give practice problems and detailed answers, but it also gives you good advice about how to approach the problems as well as what to expect. I used this book to prepare for my interviews with Microsoft, and Gayle's insight gave me a great idea of how to prepare and how to ace the interview. I recommend this book to anyone who has a coding interview in their future."


- Michelle, Amazon.com