Interviews on Algorithms in 60 Days

Bit Manipulation Tricks for Coding Interviews

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0500

Bit Manipulation Tricks for Coding Interviews

Bit manipulation has a reputation as the “party trick” section of coding interviews — and that reputation is deserved. The problems look intimidating, the optimal solutions look like magic, and yet the entire topic rests on about six tricks you can learn in an afternoon.

This post covers why bit manipulation keeps showing up in interviews, the six tricks that solve the vast majority of bitwise questions, and five classic problems with worked Python solutions. If you want the structured version, Day 53 of our challenge covers these techniques as part of the full 60-day curriculum.

Hash Maps and Sets: The Most Underrated FAANG Topic

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0500

Hash Maps and Sets: The Most Underrated FAANG Topic

Ask candidates what they’re grinding before a FAANG loop and you’ll hear dynamic programming, graphs, maybe trees. Almost nobody says “hash maps.” Yet look at any list of most-frequently-asked interview questions and hash maps are everywhere — Two Sum, Group Anagrams, Longest Consecutive Sequence, Subarray Sum Equals K, Top K Frequent Elements.

Here’s the uncomfortable math: you are far more likely to face a hash map problem than a dynamic programming problem, and hash map problems are faster to get good at. That makes them the highest-ROI topic in interview prep — and the most underrated.

The Data Structures Cheatsheet: Time & Space Complexity for Every Structure You Need

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0500

The Data Structures Cheatsheet: Time & Space Complexity for Every Structure You Need

Bookmark this page. Whether you’re cramming the night before a FAANG interview or just need to double-check whether deleting from a heap is O(log n) or O(n), this cheatsheet covers the ten data structures that account for nearly every coding interview question: arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, hash maps, sets, trees, heaps, graphs, and tries.

For each structure you’ll find the time complexity of the core operations (average and worst case), space complexity, a minimal Python snippet, and the situations where it’s the right tool. Every section links to the full lesson in our 60-day curriculum if you want to go deeper.

Tries Explained Simply (With Real Interview Problems)

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0500

Tries Explained Simply (With Real Interview Problems)

Every time your phone suggests “birthday” after you type “birt”, a trie (or one of its descendants) is doing the work. The trie — also called a prefix tree — is the data structure interviewers reach for when they want to test whether you can go beyond hash maps, and it anchors several famous problems: autocomplete, Word Search II, and Longest Word in Dictionary.

How Long Does It Take to Get a FAANG Offer?

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0500

How Long Does It Take to Get a FAANG Offer?

For most software engineers, it takes 3-6 months of consistent preparation to get a FAANG offer — roughly 10-15 hours of study per week, covering data structures, algorithm patterns, timed practice, and (for senior roles) system design. Add 1-2 months on top of that for the hiring process itself: recruiter screen, phone screen, onsite loop, and offer negotiation.

That’s the honest median. Your personal number depends on where you’re starting from, so let’s break it down.

Backtracking Explained: N-Queens to Subsets

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0500

Backtracking Explained: N-Queens to Subsets

If dynamic programming is the interview topic people fear most, backtracking is the one they fumble most. It shows up constantly — subsets, permutations, combination sum, word search, N-Queens — and candidates who haven’t internalized the pattern end up improvising recursion under pressure, which rarely goes well.

Here’s the good news: almost every backtracking interview problem is the same problem wearing a different costume. Once you learn the template, you stop memorizing solutions and start generating them. This post walks through the template and applies it to the four problem types that cover the vast majority of backtracking questions you’ll actually be asked.