Why Good Programmers FAIL Coding Interviews

1. How to crack coding interviews?
2. How to prepare for coding interviews?
3. How to learn Data Structures and Algorithms?
4. How to use Leetcode effectively?
5. How to ace Software Engineer interviews?

I will answer all these questions in this video.

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DISCLAIMER: All opinions shared on this channel are our own and don't express views or opinions of our employers. We only use our experiences and public knowledge to make our content. NO CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION of our employers is used or shared on this channel. This is not a Professional Coaching channel, it only highlights the public resources that have worked for our careers.

[SimonZimmermann]

For me coding is an art and very creative... Coding under pressure during an interview is nonsense

[Gazer-xs]

Programming is always about trials and errors, there is no way when the first time you write the code is completely fine and perfect.

[Afterlord]

This is really good advice. It's a shame that companies still do coding interviews like this though. For some jobs that are very technical it can make sense, but for most jobs you're primarily thinking at a high level. Solving these kinds of puzzles is less than useless and something I've never done, even while working on extremely technical finance modeling code. Asking them in an interview is doubly useless since it really just wastes everyone's time and tells you very little about a person's ability to program other than that they've spent a lot of time practicing for a coding interview.

[bzhmaddog]

The problem is that job interviews don't reflect real life situations (and are often done by not so competent people themself).

[sharkysharkerson]

I've been doing software development for a while now, right at the cutting edge for most of it. I'm not a fan of coding interviews to this day. Its really not reflective of the actual work. I have to understand and implement and create algorithms all the time. When there is something I don't know, I can easily learn it. When there is something nobody knows, I can leverage previous experience to synthesize something new. In most cases, coding interviews remind me of college exams. Which in a way is actually good for newbies trying to break into the industry because it builds on experiences you already have. After one has spent so many years actually working, this style of interview doesn't make as much sense. Developing software isn't like taking a test at all, so that part of your brain that you once honed to dominate the exams starts to get rusty as you're spending all your time doing things that matter. Sure, you have to know algorithms, and what to use when ... you have to know how to read code and understand what its trying to do, look for optimizations, refine, debug, simplify, etc ... but that doesn't happen in one shot and it doesn't happen under duress. It only tests one's ability to make the right choices regarding what they want to keep in their brain cache, and does nothing to assess one's ability to learn or create or understand ... all tasks that happen when relaxed. So take heart that its generally kinda difficult for anyone, regardless of level. Because I'm not a fan of interviews like this, I try to avoid giving others interviews like this. But am still refining the right approach.

[emilyau]

The interviews don't even reflect what people will be doing for the actual job

[siddharthchauhan]

I am an interview engineer and i can say each and every point stated in this video is absolutely valid. Few things I would also like to see is communication while coding from the candidates side. It can happen sometimes that the language chosen by the candidate is not known by the interviewer. This could create some issues if the candidate couldn't complete the solution on time .. because the interviewer know how good or bad the code is in general. But communicating that what the candidate is doing and what they want to achieve is always a good plan

[OBGynKenobi]

In general, passing an interview only signals that you're a good interviewer or that you've studied for a specific type of questions, which have nothing to do with real world programming.

[ajinxRGB]

amazing tips !! very simplified and to the point tips...thanks !!! Key take always for me : 1) Solve more Medium level questions 2) User helper functions while writing code 3) take help of interviewer and pay attention to his questions 4) Pay attention to the details of the questions 5) Complete focus on interview and not to worry about other stuff like your degree, college etc.

[MrHaggyy]

😅 biggest problem why people fail the interview is because they are obsessed with solving coding problems and knowing the solution to each of the coding problems. What they don't really focus, or at least don't show or communicate in the interview is their problem solving skills. Which is why the company gives you questions in the first place.
They want to hear from you if you know what it means to have sorted or unsorted data. Do you want to sort it? What time complexity / memory spacing does your algorithm have? Is the complexity a problem or not? What math would you use to lower the complexity?
In an ideal scenario you know a more complex solution and can solve the question. The interviewer hints a better solution, or adds more constraints. So you two together improve your code in the interview.
This is quite common in practice. Finding a solution that does work. Ask one person to help you implement it in an architecture. Some helper functions might be in place already or you get limited resources. If your solution does not fit you might need to ask someone who is good in math/info to help you with a better solution. This new solution might use different functions so you need to implement it again etc.
The communication what you did and why is at least as important as your solution. In a company you almoat always have people that could do what you are asked to better but you should only occupy them if needed. Also a lot of people maybe yourself years down the line need to work with your work. So it better has a clean structure thats easy to work with. Also clean work can be used much cheaper all over your company than dirty work. And if you are good you will get a problem with no known solution to date. And developing something new is a much harder but more fullfiling job. But jet again you need to be precise about what you are doing and why so the right mathematicion, physicist, engineer or programmer can give you the right pieces and tools for your problem.
Nothing is more frustrating than thinking you found a genius just to realise that he fooled himself into a burnout because you thought he solve stuff on his own.

[HeroicKhalid]

10 years experince developer and I just lost my dream job 3 hours ago due to the stupid coding test and its puzzles. I was so honest to the interviewer that In real projects we are checking for solutions in github and stack overflow to have best ones and build our own version. Anyhow, these type of interviews need to be stopped

[CodingAbroad]

The stupid thing about test interviews are that the interviewer has had several hours to ask *any* question they want whereas the interviewee is expected to take the question, think and give an immediate answer which is stupid and unfair

[creo_one]

If company offers solving some puzzle in live-coding form, it tells me that they don't know what they are doing. In daily job you rarely have some kind of algorithmic oriented issues while someone else is looking at your screen while typing and when You do have this issue then ability to learn the best approaches quickly is how You solve it. Live-coding don't show anything like that. Don't want to work there.

[sabjohn]

Awesome video. As a new grad, this video eases my anxiety during this hard time.

[flyeagle]

I started leetcode for SQL from few days sahil. It gives me some type of confidence. Thanks again :)

[pedrolopez]

As a former manager, I don't want you to code. I want you to solve problems. Coding tests are useless.

[mixshots]

Honestly very lucky to have a person like you guiding us in very good way

[FumeiYuusha]

Thanks for the great advice. I've been especially stuck worrying about things that are outside of my circle of control, where I should have been dedicating that time to improve myself where I can instead.

[faizanahmed]

Thank you, Sahil! Your tips are much helpful in preparing for our coding interviews. I know in previous videos you've mentioned that you've also learned web development like (React, Redux, etc.). My question is, how did you manage your time to learn DSA and also learning development? because I'm totally confused and I'm unable to manage both DSA and development, at the end of the day I want to say that I'm confused a lot. If possible, I would request you to make a dedicated video on it.

[chrisoffersen]

To hear that you were turned down in over 100 interviews is exactly what I needed to hear right now. Thank you.