Is CRACKING the CODING INTERVIEW worth reading? || Google Interview Questions in 2020

If you're a software developer, there's a good chance you've heard of Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. A perennial bestseller, the book's premise is that it'll prepare you for passing the all-important technical interviews at top tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google and Microsoft.

And indeed, the book has nearly 200 questions that put your white boarding skills to the test, getting you primed for the big day (or days). There are also some sections on behavioral questions, along with insider information on company cultures. Data structures and algorithms play a center role here as expected -- after all, you're interviewing to be an engineer at one of the most respected tech companies in the world!

But for the vast majority of software developers - especially newcomers to the field - this book has a major opportunity cost. Is this book going to help you in 2020? I'm showing you exactly what I'm talking about it today's video on RealToughCandy.
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[RealToughCandy]

By popular demand, I asked Celina about her thoughts on C# starting at 10:07

[JDdueck]

This isn't commonly known, but FAANG companies make up to 70% of their annual revenue just from reversing linked lists. The remainder of the revenue, of course, comes from 90-degree rotation of 2D matrices. (Margin of error: +/- 70%)

[MetallicDETHmaiden]

I found this book to be very helpful for my undergrad data structures and algorithms classes. A lot of professors in computer science use these type of questions on their exams.

[sipocharles]

Nailed it, and constructively as always. Love this channel! 👊🏿💥

[codezero]

Yeh, I am an experienced developer wanting sharpen my skills and get into free lancing. I have come to the conclusion that I should spend more time building a portfolio and less time on LeetCode.

[babyboie]

100% agree. I interviewed with Microsoft before my last deployment and focused on nothing but DS and Alg and it's definitely a unique skill set that is required. I added, what I would say, an additional 6 graduate level hrs the year before I interview just because I knew I would have to be able to answer these type of questions to get the internship. I def think as a self-taught, undergrad, hell even grad level these skills are not just learned though everyday on the job work or course work from school. I have a friend to help me and train me. He was graduated from MIT and he was very Very VERY good with this type of thinking and ability to break a problem down to the smallest parts and rebuild it to answer the question. I asked him if he learned all this from MIT because I was feeling defeated that I was in grad school and wasn't close to his level he let me know it wasn't MIT it was his work on computational mathematics and signal processing for the defense industry that helped him develop those skills. Even in 1 of my 3 interviews on super day at Microsoft the guy told me he hates hates those types of interviews because it doesn't show you if the person can solve a real world problem that they would have to work on everyday on the job... but he then asked me the same type of question he hates lol. He said it is exactly what you said it is a filter. O but I did get the interview and killed it and got the return offer 👍🏽😉🤜🏽🤛🏽 but I saw no one in the team I was on or even the org I was working in use any of the stuff I had to do in the interview.🤷🏽‍♂️

[gabriel_export]

Just got this for Christmas. I think eventually I will want to prep myself for a FAANG job but not for my next one. Thank you so much for bringing up the opportunity cost point.

[soradev]

Thanks for the info. Currently learning coding problems and felt like I only needed to take that stuff so far

[TheLucidWay]

Your videos are always so helpful! Thanks 🖖

[chiquitocastaneda]

Well you keep outdoing yourself, this is a really big help to all the Jr. and probably Sr. developers... It is good that someone takes a stand and calls out the truth, so keep up the good work, Chiquito...

[danonuevo]

Very nice and it became an eye opener for us all. Thank you very much RealToughCandy and more videos to come. :)

[JM-gzej]

Totally agree. Throughout my entire software engineering carrier, I have never encountered anything mentioned in the book.

[sau-rav.adhikari]

Great Insights....Love your videos...Happy New Year everybody!!

[candaceleach]

Happy New Year RTC. I have the book and since I'm in the NYC area, I use it to figure out what to expect in big tech companies' interviews. I was never asked to reverse a linked list but heard that it is one of the famous problems. I work on projects which help me work on my problem solving and logical thinking skills.

[arshiaalidosti]

Thank you, I really love to work for those companies, so I should take it! your review was helpful.

[nemanjadjoric]

Thanks Candy, you really know how to deliver in most truthfully way. Thank you!!!

[sladjanivkovic]

I agree with you on this topic. I have degree as computer engineer and over 1 year of experience in Unity, C# and yet these Cracking the Coding questions are so hard, because I never had to do something like that at work, even though I worked as game developer and I had a TON of features to implement and to think a lot. But on the other hand I have no idea what companies I am applying for are going to ask me, so I have to prepare these questions, just in case.

[WhenItsHalfPastFive]

I might disagree here. If you're looking for a job in the areas with the most jobs (like in SF/NY/LA/Austin/Seattle), a lot of them are going to ask you leetcode questions. It's easy to say they have no business asking you these questions, but the amount of companies using this interviewing technique is unfortunately increasing, not decreasing. At least in my experience, in the startups I've interviewed at in Silicon Valley, around 60% of them use these types of questions in interviews.

[AndrewErwin]

The reason the large companies have such huge turnover is that they ask textbook questions (questions that someone with a computer science degree can answer). Knowing the textbook and knowing how to write a program (solve a problem) are not the same thing. But it is like you said, they can... they have enough candidates that they can bullshit through until they find the people they think are right for their culture. And, make no mistake... culture is everything to most of these companies. Think about Facebook? Shit product, based on shit technology (React was created because the Facebook engineers couldn't figure out MVC should actually work), but they have a certain culture rocking. Google is the same way. Google designs "boot camps" that are designed to filter out certain mindsets.

[busyrand]

Yo... I love you for being frank about this...All this stuff does is make a person feel more insecure about their skillset and worthiness. All of the algorithm stuff is stuff I wanna learn out of curiosity, but it completely takes developers in a direction that diverts them from what makes them a real-world developer. I feel like people just wanna keep folks confused so they can "influence hustle" and inflate their own personal authority as teachers of this field. This type of thing is for the Computer Science Grad who wants to pursue that job track and also learned how to program like a developer on their own cuz it damn sure isn't taught in college.