Tech Interview Handbook: Preparing for a Technical Interview in IT

Topics covered

• •Understand how an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) reads and filters out resumes before a human ever sees them
• •Learn how to structure a software developer's resume: sections, ordering, and the format of work-experience entries
• •Master the principle of tailoring a resume to a specific job posting using keywords from the job description

Topics covered

• •Distinguish between interview round types: quiz, online assessment, take-home assignment, phone screen, onsite
• •Understand the stages of a software developer's full interview cycle, from recruiter to offer
• •Know the format specifics of individual companies (Google, Meta, Airbnb, Dropbox, Lyft, and others) and be able to prepare deliberately for a specific format

Topics covered

• •Understand the four evaluation criteria for a coding interview: communication, problem solving, technical competency, testing
• •Master a structured sequence of actions during the interview itself: before, during, and after
• •Learn a set of solution-finding techniques (visualization, breaking into subtasks, typical data structures) and complexity-optimization techniques (BTTC, avoiding repeated computation, changing data structures)

Topics covered

• •Systematize your knowledge of the key data structures that come up in interviews: arrays, strings, hash tables, stacks, tries
• •Understand the typical operation complexity (Big O) for each structure and be able to explain it
• •Know sorting and search: which algorithms are worth knowing "by complexity," and which you should be able to apply off the shelf (binary search, the language's built-in sort)

Topics covered

• •Understand why system design interviews exist and why they're given primarily to mid-level/senior candidates
• •Distinguish the four formats of system design questions: backend/distributed systems, API design, object-oriented design, front-end architecture
• •Know the list of typical "classic" system design questions and the logic behind how they're built

Topics covered

• •Master the STAR(R) format (Situation, Task, Action, Result, + Reflection) for answering behavioral questions
• •Understand the logic of picking stories for interviews: not memorizing answers to specific questions, but building a bank of 3-5 strong project stories
• •Know the "focus areas" behavioral questions target (motivation, initiative, working under uncertainty, persistence, conflict resolution, growth) and how the same stories read differently at different levels (junior/senior/staff)