Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions 5th Revised & enlarged Edition

by Gayle Laakmann McDowell (Author)

708 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0984782802

ISBN-10: 098478280X

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Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
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Now in the 5th edition, Cracking the Coding Interview gives you the interview preparation you need to get the top software developer jobs. This is a deeply technical book and focuses on the software engineering skills to ace your interview. The book is over 500 pages and includes 150 programming interview questions and answers, as well as other advice.

The full list of topics are as follows:

The Interview Process

This section offers an overview on questions are selected and how you will be evaluated. What happens when you get a question wrong? When should you start preparing, and how? What language should you use? All these questions and more are answered.

Behind the Scenes

Learn what happens behind the scenes during your interview, how decisions really get made, who you interview with, and what they ask you. Companies covered include Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.

Special Situations

This section explains the process for experience candidates, Program Managers, Dev Managers, Testers / SDETs, and more. Learn what your interviewers are looking for and how much code you need to know.

Before the Interview

In order to ace the interview, you first need to get an interview. This section describes what a software engineer's resume should look like and what you should be doing well before your interview.

Behavioral Preparation

Although most of a software engineering interview will be technical, behavioral questions matter too. This section covers how to prepare for behavioral questions and how to give strong, structured responses.

Technical Questions (+ 5 Algorithm Approaches)

This section covers how to prepare for technical questions (without wasting your time) and teaches actionable ways to solve the trickiest algorithm problems. It also teaches you what exactly "good coding" is when it comes to an interview.

150 Programming Questions and Answers

This section forms the bulk of the book. Each section opens with a discussion of the core knowledge and strategies to tackle this type of question, diving into exactly how you break down and solve it. Topics covered include

Arrays and Strings
Linked Lists
Stacks and Queues
Trees and Graphs
Bit Manipulation
Brain Teasers
Mathematics and Probability
Object-Oriented Design
Recursion and Dynamic Programming
Sorting and Searching
Scalability and Memory Limits
Testing
C and C++
Java
Databases
Threads and Locks

For the widest degree of readability, the solutions are almost entirely written with Java (with the exception of C / C++ questions). A link is provided with the book so that you can download, compile, and play with the solutions yourself.

Changes from the Fourth Edition: The fifth edition includes over 200 pages of new content, bringing the book from 300 pages to over 500 pages. Major revisions were done to almost every solution, including a number of alternate solutions added. The introductory chapters were massively expanded, as were the opening of each of the chapters under Technical Questions. In addition, 24 new questions were added.

Cracking the Coding Interview, Fifth Edition is the most expansive, detailed guide on how to ace your software development / programming interviews.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Author

I am not a recruiter. I am a software engineer. And as such, I know what it's like to be asked to whip up brilliant algorithms on the spot, and then write flawless code on a whiteboard. I know because I've been asked to do the same thing--in interviews at Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, among other companies.

I also know because I've been on the other side of the table, asking candidates to do this. I've combed through stacks of resumes to find the engineers who I thought might be able to actually pass these interviews. And I've debated in Google's Hiring Committee whether or not a candidate did well enough to merit an offer. I understand and have experienced the full hiring circle.

And you, reader, are probably preparing for an interview, perhaps tomorrow, next week, or next year. You likely have or are working towards a Computer Science or related degree. I am not here to re-teach you the basics of what a binary search tree is, or how to traverse a linked list. You already know such things, and if not, there are plenty of other resources to learn them.

This book is here to help you take your understanding of Computer Science fundamentals to the next level, to help you apply those fundamentals to crack the coding interview. Because while the fundamentals are necessary to land one of the top jobs, they aren't always enough. For countless readers, this book has been just what they needed.

About the Author

Gayle Laakmann McDowell is the founder / CEO of CareerCup.com and the author of The Google Resume: How to Prepare for a Career and Land a Job at Apple, Microsoft, Google, or any Top Tech Company.

Work Experience

Her interviewing expertise comes from vast experience on both sides of the desk. She has completed Software Engineering interviews with - and received offers from - Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Goldman Sachs, Capital IQ, and a number of other firms.

Of these top companies, she has worked for Microsoft, Apple and Google, where she gained deep insight into each company's hiring practices.

Most recently, Gayle spent three years at Google as a Software Engineer and was one of the company's lead interviewers. She interviewed over 120 candidates in the U.S. and abroad, and, as a software engineer, led much of the recruiting for her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.

Additionally, she served on Google's Hiring Committee, where she reviewed each candidate's feedback and made hire / no-hire decisions. She assessed over 700 candidates in that role, and evaluated hundreds more resumes.

Education
Gayle holds a bachelor's and master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and MBA from The Wharton School.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ CareerCup; 5th Revised & enlarged edition (August 22, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 510 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 098478280X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0984782802
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.49 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 1.03 x 9.02 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #433,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #287 in Job Interviewing (Books)
- #371 in Software Design & Engineering
- #482 in Computer Hacking

Customer Reviews:
708 ratings

About the author

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Gayle Laakmann McDowell

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Gayle Laakmann McDowell is an author, consultant, and founder focusing on improving tech hiring for both the interviewer and the candidate.

Gayle has worked as an engineer for Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Most recently, at Google, she served on the hiring committee where she interviewed hundreds of candidates and evaluated thousands more. It was here that she discovered the disconnect between candidates, their skill set, and their interview performance.

Though her company, CareerCup, Gayle has worked with many of the top tech companies to reform their hiring practices and implement interviewer training programs.

She is the author and creator the best-selling Cracking the Interview & Career series: Cracking the Coding Interview, Cracking the PM Interview (co-authored with Jackie Bavaro), Cracking the PM Career (co-authored with Jackie Bavaro), and Cracking the Tech Career

Gayle holds a bachelor's and master's in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

She currently consults, writes, and codes from her home in Palo Alto, California. She can be found online at gayle.com, twitter (@gayle), and facebook (@gayle).

Customer reviews

5 star		75%
4 star		13%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		4%

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Tomanyscam

Great for reviewing It concepts that most schools dont teach correctly.

Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2018

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Really good to go over school type tech concepts, and some IT HR departments seem to standardize to something like this. I received some of these type of questions for jobs. Usually these kind of places would go ghost after I spend lots of time and I would try to find the places that were actively looking for people. Often these places would find some reason why the code challenge was not good enough "didn't demonstrate a clear understanding of binary data" or "thank you for spending the time with the coding challenge, unfortunately we only select 1% of whom we outreach too". From my take most companies that are actually hiring don't really follow these or similar questions, and you will have to demonstrate enterprise experience or bs those concepts i.e understand what the tech is so you can tell the hr why yes I've been sitting behind an enterprise environment for the last 10 years making microservices which is why I am here unemployed trying to get your entry level job. The companies that ask these kind of procedural questions likely treat the hiring process like a lottery game where you will be jumping through the hoops with other 100's of other competitors. It is usually by companies that get so many applicants that the hr departments turn the process into a lottery game, google, facebook, amazon, Microsoft, and government. My advice would be to look for places that need to perform explicit business task, and need people rather then the places that want to waste your time with excessive tiered challenges and time wasters that have nothing to do with the employment function. In other words remember to spend more time with apache, react, Hadoop, spring, data science, webservices ect. then reverse engineering something you could just use java.util.* for.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Michael Gareth

More than just technical question examples.

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2015

Verified Purchase

First things first: this book helped me get multiple offers, and I recently accepted a job at a top-name developer.

My education is in computer science, and I have been writing software for about 10 years, but that's not enough for interviews these days. They will grill you repeatedly with varied problems, and see how you handle the pressure. I picked up this book mid-way through my interview process for a handful of software jobs. While I am confident in my ability to interview well from a personality perspective, the technical parts of the interview have always stressed me out, and frankly, I'd gotten a little cynical about the whole process.

The problems in the book are cool, but you can find plenty of problems for free online. It's really everything *around* the problems in this book that make it great. The book starts by explaining the "why" of technical interviews, the peripheral stuff, such as how to dress, how to practice for non-technical questions, how to break down problems, how to write good code, and how to respond to rejection and acceptance. Then it breaks down technical problems into a series of categories, such various data structures (arrays, trees/graphs, linked lists, etc), object oriented design, and mathematics and probability.

What helped me more than anything, though, was the breakdown of the "why" of technical problems. In one of my successful interviews, I was presented two purely mathematical physics problems. In both cases, I knew generally how the solution would work, but in one case, I couldn't remember the formula, and in the other I knew the principle of the algorithm, but not the execution. In both cases, the first thing I did was confidently look at my interviewers and say "I'm going to need some help with this one." Then I proceeded to work through the problem with their help and hints, exhibiting collaboration and courtesy. This book helped me get to that point of not freaking out when I know I don't know the solution--it's not just about answering correctly, it's about how you work through road blocks, confusion, walls, and frustration.

41 people found this helpful

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farewellwilliams

Will definitely prepare you...little bit of overkill for new interns however.

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2012

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So I got pretty nervous when I got a call setting up for an interview at some *big* company for an internship (not listed in this book). I went through several chapters of this book. I was freaking out since most of the questions were quite tricky for me, but I realize that it's okay. These questions are supposed to be tricky. In the end however, my interviewer asked an extremely elementary question (which I still screwed up because I was really nervous). If you're getting interviewed for company that doesn't focus heavily on algorithms and optimizations, you're better off trying to prepare how to NOT be nervous during an interview (do some mock interviews at your college).

The nice thing is that, I feel pretty confident I can take on some more challenging questions after going through this book. I just need to work on being calm during the interview and I'll be fine. Definitely a must have.

7 people found this helpful

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Tim

Good Book, Good Advise, Good Algorithm Reviews.

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2015

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I own both her books, this one, and the PM Interview.
This one is Great, has many many good pointers for going in to relatively any kind of technical, managerial, or leadership position.
Good review of the Algorithms, and good to know what the companies are looking for & expecting you to know...

Except for maybe the guidance on being able to write a complete complex program, without any errors, (logic or syntax) and it being able to run the first time, perfectly... I've been doing software 15 years, and another 20 years in the military in High Tech Avionics... Her one expectation there is rather ridiculous, to say the least....
That would be synonymous with asking a test pilot to demonstrate how to take off or land his aircraft safely, without consulting the checklist....

4 people found this helpful

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Likey

Awesome tips

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2016

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There is lots of information here for interviews and prepare you really well.

4 people found this helpful

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rob

Helpful for big tech cos

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2017

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Most big tech cos (at least here in London - e.g. Google, Facebook etc) require whiteboard coding and problem solving, and this is a very easy to read guide to help you prepare for what to expect. Easy to both flick through, or just pick up and glance over - as well as work through systematically.

A lot of this can be found online, and lots of places let you practice with real example questions - but still nice to have (either to read on the train, or just to flick through) - I generally found it helpful for my prep for Google interviews, and generally found the content and style re-assuring given the number of horror stories about these big tech interviews.

Gianluca Tranchedone

A must read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 18, 2013

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The book is very well written and exposes all the basic key points of a good technical interview preparation process. Moreover, the book is stuffed with common interview problems that are to be fully understood by candidates as similar problems might be presented in their next interview. If you're preparing for an interview, this book will help you understand what knowledge you're lacking and how to train for whiteboard problem solving exercise that are fairly common in technical interview, especially with big companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc.

3 people found this helpful

Olutayo D.

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2017

Verified Purchase

It is okay, hits the nail on the head

Dragojevic Aleksandar

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2016

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Quite useful. I would recommend reading it before interviewing. But also expanding on the areas it covers where needed.

Lukey Boy

A Good Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2015

Verified Purchase

Definitely a good read, takes a lot of knowledge on programming to understand (obviously).

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Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions 5th Revised & enlarged Edition

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