Cracking The Coding Interview

What Hacker News says

1. frabonacciAug 2025
   Good intro! I first learned Big O from Cracking the Coding Interview since many universities in Europe notoriously skip complexity notations even in basic programming classes. This definitely explains it in a much simpler way.
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2. emilwallnerFeb 2025
   Thanks! I saw your earlier question related to working with AI at FAANG, from the context of being 30ish, and self-taught. I was around 27 when I started learning software engineering and AI.

   I made a free e-book here (https://emilwallner.gumroad.com/l/no-ml-degree), and I believe most of the key points are still valid, however, when I learned software engineering and ML, ML was a rather small field and tools like chatGPT and claude didn’t exist.

   Imo, asking about a curriculum is the wrong framing, for me, it was more about how to find resources to focus full-time and being in an environment that increases my motivation.

   I started learning software engineering at home taking courses, but I procrastinated too much to be effective, maybe I did around 10 hours of effective learning per week. For me, studying C at 42 (https://www.42network.org/42-schools/), a free peer-to-peer school was crucial, and I recommend something similar. It enabled me to focus 70-90 hours a week, and after 6 months I was good enough to get competitive startup job offers.

   During my time, the FastAI course (https://www.fast.ai/) was the best practical AI course. I'd probably spend a week looking for ambitious projects made by recent autodidacts, and ask them which course they think is best now. And spend max 1-2 months taking the course.

   As for picking projects and building a portfolio, the advice in my e-book is still valid. An ambitious but realistic timeframe for landing a FAANG job is 3-5 years. Once you have a solid portfolio, I’d recommend joining say a YC-startup or similar with ex-FAANG employees to get up to speed and references. My first gig was at the YC-startup FloydHub with ex-FAANG employees.

   If you are self-taught it’s often easier to get on the FAANG radar by making highly domain specific portfolio projects that are core to their business, or making open-source contributions to their projects. The other route is applying for jobs, however, most people without an ivy-level degree don’t pass the screening stage. If you choose this path, plan for at least 6 month to learn the first part of Ian Goodfellow’s book (https://www.deeplearningbook.org/) using say ChatGPT as your tutor, also grasp the key content in Chip Huyen’s books (https://huyenchip.com/), learn cracking the coding interview, and get good at solving leetcode hard problems.

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3. optymizerFeb 2025
   Algorithms by Sedgewick is pretty good for learning the fundamentals, imo, and sufficient (together with the Cracking the Coding Interview book) to pass interviews at the FAANGs I've worked at (and was an interviewer at for years).
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4. Sn0wCoderSep 2024
   Hey Zack just checked out your linked-in and honestly it would be worth contacting a professional resume specialist. You have a double Bachelor in CS/EE and tons of relevant experience. A wordsmith could make you look like gold on paper. Grab the book ‘Cracking the Coding Interview’, do some leetcod practice. If you can grab a couple Google Cloud certs great and/or build a web app with the latest version of Angular, Next.js, whatever so you can update your tech stack perfect. Not sure why you believe C++ is not relevant anymore the concepts have not changed only the syntax.

   Like others have said, just some random on the internet, but at a minimum seriously find a wordsmith to update that resume and some recruiter will be contacting you. Also, more is not better no need to list the Test Tech or Mac Repair since other jobs overlap with those years and makes it seem like you were only part time. Everyone fibs a little bit no one is going to ask if you were part time or full time on a job from 20 years ago. Also, if you have self-employed listed make sure you have the tax# and LLC cert from the state as they are going to want to see that as proof to count as relevant experience.

   I know you did not ask for my advice, but after reading your reply got me curious about why so gloom. As programmers we need to market ourselves and fake it till, we make it.

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5. stevenaloweJun 2024
   riddles and puzzles are pointless flexing by the interviewer

   algorithm-optimization problems are relevant if and only if the company operates at significant scale; the "tricks" employed are not mysterious/tricky secrets, they're standard approaches (like dynamic programming == caching previous computations) for software engineering

   Cracking the Coding Interview is a good book; the Stanford algorithms course on Coursera is excellent

   the ideal interview would be to hire you for a day/week to do something real with the team...

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6. kagakuninjaJun 2024
   Good luck, I'm sympathetic as I've gone through some rough patches, and once thought my career was over.

   Looking at my career, it tanked at age 44, in 2007 due to the financial crisis, and has never truly recovered. Part of this is the reality of getting old. Age discrimination is real.

   I am now 60, and still employed, but mainly with contracts, and even those have been difficult to get, in part because I am not a good interviewer.

   My approach has been to focus on senior software engineering roles, even though that could be considered "junior" given my decades of experience.

   All I can suggest is that you cram for interviews for whatever roles you are hoping to get. Read Cracking the Coding Interview, practice solving problems on Hacker Rank, cram for design and behavioral interviews, etc.

   Yes, I had to practice doing l33t code bullshit. It is part of how we have to play the game.

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