Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions 6th Edition

by Gayle Laakmann McDowell (Author)

552 customer reviews

in Software Development

ISBN-13: 978-0984782857

ISBN-10: 0984782869

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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've been through this as a candidate and as an interviewer.

Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition is here to help you through this process, teaching you what you need to know and enabling you to perform at your very best. I've coached and interviewed hundreds of software engineers. The result is this book.

Learn how to uncover the hints and hidden details in a question, discover how to break down a problem into manageable chunks, develop techniques to unstick yourself when stuck, learn (or re-learn) core computer science concepts, and practice on 189 interview questions and solutions.

These interview questions are real; they are not pulled out of computer science textbooks. They reflect what's truly being asked at the top companies, so that you can be as prepared as possible. WHAT'S INSIDE?

189 programming interview questions, ranging from the basics to the trickiest algorithm problems.
A walk-through of how to derive each solution, so that you can learn how to get there yourself.
Hints on how to solve each of the 189 questions, just like what you would get in a real interview.
Five proven strategies to tackle algorithm questions, so that you can solve questions you haven't seen.
Extensive coverage of essential topics, such as big O time, data structures, and core algorithms.
A behind the scenes look at how top companies like Google and Facebook hire developers.
Techniques to prepare for and ace the soft side of the interview: behavioral questions.
For interviewers and companies: details on what makes a good interview question and hiring process.

Number of Pages:696

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gayle Laakmann McDowell is the founder and CEO of CareerCup and the author of Cracking the PM Interview and Cracking the Tech Career.

Her background is in software development. She has worked as a software engineer at Google, Microsoft, and Apple. At Google, she interviewed hundreds of software engineers and evaluated thousands of hiring packets on the hiring committee. She holds a B.S.E. and M.S.E. in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton School.

She now consults with tech companies to improve their hiring process and with startups to prepare them for acquisition interviews.

Paperback: 687 pages
Publisher: CareerCup; 6th edition (July 1, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0984782869
ISBN-13: 978-0984782857
ASIN: 0984782850
Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.6 x 10 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 552 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Software Development
- #1 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science
- #1 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Programming Languages

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Tim

Perpetuates the insanity of programmer interviews. Resist if you can.

July 23, 2017

Format: Paperback

As programming interview prep books go, this one is currently the most popular of the bunch. It's OK, in that you'll find material to practice for the whiteboard interviews that are prevalent at big tech companies. But let's be honest: this whole ecosystem is toxic. Here's a lady who worked for a few years at Google (that's right -- she worked for a *few* years, and only interned at those other big names she mentioned), and has parlayed that rather limited work experience into an entire lifestyle business, where she coaches programmers on how to pass interviews. That should tell you something important: the interview-prep industry has completely decoupled itself from the actual job of programming!

I've been writing software for a long time, and I'm competent at my job. I've worked at some well-known companies, and I've interviewed a LOT of people. But I'm here to tell you that even I can't pass one of these interviews without studying. That's a bad thing. If the goal of an interview is to identify competent programmers, we've gone far, far off the rails with these kinds of interviews.

But of course, that isn't (entirely) the author's fault. She's just a cog in the machine, and profits by perpetuating it. Because the presence of books like these create a vicious cycle: prep book gets written; interviewees study/memorize answers; interviewers make questions "harder" to compensate; new book gets written! It never ends. The grinder continues to turn, and whereas ten years ago you could get a good job with some string or linked-list manipulation questions, now you've got people who consider whiteboard coding of topcoder elite questions to be the baseline measurement of programmer competency. That's nuts.

You'll even run into lazy interviewers who take questions directly from this book, which is the ultimate in stupidity: if "good" candidates have prepared from the book, and you ask questions directly from the book, what are you really accomplishing, other than a test of memorization skills? And yet, this is distressingly common. I've seen it myself. I've had recruiters from major tech companies send me pages from this book so that I can "prepare" for their interviews. What now?

This kind of crap only stops if the more senior amongst us simply *refuse* to do it anymore. New grads have no leverage, so it's up to the rest of us to stand up and demand change. If you work at a company, please, INSIST that your interview process avoid questions from this book. If you interview programmers, please, stick to questions that demonstrate actual day-to-day work competency. And yes, if you're interviewing and you have the leverage, stand up to companies that try to abuse you with this kind of demeaning nonsense.

If we are to be professionals, we have to demand the career respect afforded to professionals. That includes not being treated like children when we are interviewed.

963 people found this helpful

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David C.

If you only want to use one book, this is it

October 23, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is obviously the must-have book to prepare for your SWE/SDE interview. I have some small quibbles with how some of the problems were worded, but the level of difficulty is very representative of what the big tech companies are using. You might even run into these questions in your own interviews since Gayle is choosing questions that are popular among interviewers today. If you have time, you should of course pick up an algorithms textbook also. I recommend Skiena's The Algorithm Design Manual and Sedgewick's Algorithms (4th Edition) textbooks. The classic Cormen is too verbose and proof-heavy for the purposes of preparing for an interview.

The DP solutions in this book are not actually tabular DP formulations--I recommend looking at the problems here http://people.cs.clemson.edu/~bcdean/dp_practice/ (Brian Dean's Dynamic Programming Practice Problems). Gayle presents memoized solutions, which are much easier conceptually but not as clean or performant as bottoms-up tabular solutions.

136 people found this helpful

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Sean Callanan

Got me the job

October 5, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This got me through four interviews, and I got an offer from each one. I would recommend this to anyone, with two big provisos: (1) if you’re going for a domain specific position like compilers, make sure to read up on those separately; and (2) focus on the Moderate problems. The Hard problems frankly weren’t asked and it was much more important to have the whiteboard coding method down.

21 people found this helpful

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Paul Ewing

An excellent investment

December 16, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I graduated with a CS degree in 2014 and recently decided to find a new job. The first 200 or so pages are a great review for someone who wants to brush up on all of the "must-know" topics such as data structures, search algorithms, algorithmic complexity, sorting, etc. There are a handful of questions specific to each of these chapters.

After the chapters comes a slough of example interview questions rated as easy/medium/hard, each with hints that interviewers might provide if you were to get stuck as well as a solution.

Interviewing with companies can be a pretty grueling process so if you want a much better chance of landing the job the first time, I would highly recommend this book.

22 people found this helpful

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Tim

it seems like EVERYONE knows this book

August 17, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Here, in Silicon Valley, it seems like EVERYONE knows this book. It seems like everyone who comes here from India and China knows it as well. I’m from Europe, and I had never heard of it. So I bought it. I read it. And I did some of the many excercises. Did I learn anything? Not really. Is it good for interview training? Absolutely, yes.

PROs:
+ The first few chapters are short recaps on what you should already know.
+ There are hundreds of interview-like questions. Very algorithm-oriented. Which is indeed what tech companies ask.
+ This book might indeed improve your chances at Apple, Google, Facebook, etc...

CONs:
- This book will NOT make you a better software engineer. It only helps you at the interview-part.

11 people found this helpful

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