Whiteboard Coding Interviews: 6 Steps to Solve Any Problem

Whiteboard Coding Interviews: A 6 Step Process to Solve Any Problem

[jardondiego]

1. Repeat: make sure you do understand the problem.
2. Example: get insights by doing examples
3. Approach: come up with your approach(es) to the problem (brute force first)
4. Code: write the code for your chosen approach
5. Testing: pass the testcases
6. Optimize: optimize the complexities (time and space) of your algorithm

[samanthagomez]

I had an interview today and it was my FIRST TIME whiteboarding! I was so nervous and had no clue what to expect so I just wanted to say thank you for making this video because it really helped me get through the interview and I was lucky enough to get an email back to move on to the next stages.

[BehPoker]

This is probably the best valued programming content I've seen on youtube.

[JustinSchieck]

I have an interview today. Out of everything I've watched to prepare in the last 2 days, this has been the best help yet. I came from computer programming college courses and not computer science and have 4 years of web dev under my belt. I've never done a coding interview as I've worked for a large corp since I left school. I've needed this example.

[rogerdeutsch]

Fantastic talk. Great points created around a memorable acronym. Especially great points were:
1. Talk your approach out, talk about what your thinking 2. Decompose your solution into high-level functions (don’t start writing imperative code) 3. Break down your approach into high level ideas -- you can often become caught-up on trivial details but this helps you think of the over all solution. Thanks for the great advice.

[meowchka]

I really appreciate this video! Thank you for taking your time to explain this. I've been in this field for over a decade, and I realize now that when I was an entry level developer I naturally performed at interviews using similar set of steps. Now as I am at a senior level, I am more nervous about white boarding than ever before. I realize that it is because I adopted the classic thought -- "As a senior I need to be able to solve all of these problems easily." I appreciate this video so much as it reminded me that "No I don't have to know all of it. The goal is to show how I think." Thanks!

[ChristopherCricketWallace]

it's a test to see if you're just like them--a test to see if you know the same things they do (and therefore are on their level).

Personally, I think that's not always the best way to full a team. It may be good to have people that know different things so your team can do more together.

[sethm]

I've been programming professionally for over a decade -- this is great advice for interviews and, often, doing the actual work

[Madinko]

I have to say this has been the most helpful video I have watched to prepare myself, and it helped me way more than I thought it would through my past interview. Background: I am a very pathologically anxious person. Trick interview questions with stangers looking over my shoulder and judging me is definitely one of the most terrific situation possible for me to be in.

I was still very unbearably freaked out with the interview, almost brain-frozen by anxiety and dark thoughts. But this video really gave me those few steps I could hold to, and it was comforting. I was able to get started, clear-up my thoughts, and tackle the problem with a clear methodology, in a constructed way.

I was still very anxious, and it felt like I solved their problem in a "secondary thread", while my main thread was focused on being anxious and frozen. But that secondary thread was definitely following the framework, and I think it was key. Apprently, my secondary thread solved their problem successfully.

I'm still a bit bitter that they ask this kind of trick questions during interviews. It's only good at evaluating the level of stress of the interviewee, and how much they have prepared for this very specific kind of interview question, which is pointless and unrelated to the actual job. But regardless, thank you so much, this video was of great help.

[AlbertoRodriguez-oejo]

Thanks, you saved me from directly rushing towards the keyboard and start typing code as soon as problem is displayed.

[keemkorn]

I think their should be ONE more little step in here. That being simplify and break down the problem into smaller parts, then once you have your bearings on that small control size, scale it up to the whole problem at hand. It's not always gonna work, but it's helped me notice patterns I was missing when trying to tackle the problem as a whole.

[anikamukherjee]

This deserves more views. I have been working as a manager for some time and was feeling very nervous for a technical interview since it's been a while since I've had to do coding. This gave me very practical advice that I will certainly be using and will take with me forward to any future technical interviews.

[nonen]

After watching a thousand videos about this topic. This is the best of them all. No disrespect to other creators.

[DiegoOliveiraProf]

totally faild my interview with Amazon. My codes didn't pass all the tests, felt horrible at the time. Then realized it is a huge company and many people told me it is very hard to pass!

[KaneTheWrestler]

Very helpful. Please make a sample video with the whiteboard.

[DanDascalescu-dandv]

Great idea to start by writing pseudocode. To expand on that, you can start breaking down the problem by writing out comments for the code sections.

[batlin]

I've heard that "breadth-first coding" idea described before as "top-down" rather than bottom-up, but breadth-first describes it better. There's an old diagram format from the 1980s called Warnier diagrams which is basically all about this. The conventions of the diagram aren't very important, other than that it makes you describe what happens at the top level in one or two words per action, before moving down to the second level and so on.

[LorandPalfalvi]

I feel like this helped me reduce my technical interview anxiety a bit. Thank you so much! 🙏

[NomadCodemist]

this vídeo made me MUCH calmer about my upcoming interview at Amazon. I have some live coding experience that I hope will help me to not freeze and stay a little bit more chill

[hash]

nice, this video values more more than "I'm former FAANG Google Uber super coder .and now " .. Good job, man