Lessons
1The interview loop and the hire rubric48 min read
The four-axis hire rubric, six-step interview loop, company-tier calibration, silent-coding failure mode, and Two Sum as a rubric drill — narration is the skill, code is the artifact.
- →Interview Problem Solving
2Two pointers on arrays and lists48 min read
Opposite-end, same-direction, and fast/slow pointer families — invariants, complexity, production metaphors (stream merge, retry loops), and 3Sum discipline.
- →Linear Array Patterns
- →Interview Problem Solving
3Sliding window48 min read
Fixed and variable sliding windows, the at-most-K template, minimum window covering, amortized O(n) reasoning, and production metaphors for rolling metrics.
- →Linear Array Patterns
4Hashmaps, prefix sums, and counting48 min read
Frequency maps, prefix-sum + hash for subarray sum K, anagram keys, complexity narration, and production counting metaphors.
- →Linear Array Patterns
5Intervals and heaps48 min read
Merge/insert intervals, meeting rooms with heaps, top-K min-heap of size K, two-heap streaming median, and production scheduling/latency metaphors.
- →Intervals and Heaps
6Modified binary search48 min read
Boundary-safe binary search, rotated arrays, first/last occurrence, and search-on-answer (Koko, ship packages) with capacity-planning metaphors.
- →Linear Array Patterns
7Trees and graphs50 min read
Tree BFS/DFS, LCA, graph BFS/DFS, topological sort, clone graph, word ladder — with blast-radius and migration-order production metaphors.
- →Tree and Graph Traversal
8DP, backtracking, and the capstone mock52 min read
Core DP and backtracking templates, then a full rubric mock on LRU cache, token-bucket rate limiter, and streaming median — production-flavored close to the track.
- →DP and Backtracking
- →Intervals and Heaps
- →Interview Problem Solving
Skills in this course
- 01Interview Problem SolvingClarify, plan, code, test, and narrate tradeoffs under interview pressure.
- 02Linear Array PatternsRecognize and apply pointer, window, hash, prefix, and search patterns.
- 03Intervals and HeapsModel active sets, overlap, top-k, and streaming order with suitable structures.
- 04Tree and Graph TraversalChoose BFS, DFS, topological order, or union-find from graph structure.
- 05DP and BacktrackingState subproblems and search choices before implementing dynamic programs or backtracking.