Interview Prep#

Systematic preparation for technical and behavioral interviews.

Behavioral Frameworks#

STAR for Behavioral Questions#

Tell me about a time when...

Element	What to Cover
Situation	Context — project, team, timeline
Task	Your specific responsibility
Action	What YOU did (not the team)
Result	Quantified outcome, what you learned

Common Questions to Prepare#

1. "Tell me about yourself" → 60-second career narrative
2. "Biggest challenge/project" → STAR with technical depth
3. "Conflict with a teammate" → Show emotional intelligence
4. "Failure/mistake" → Honest story + what you learned
5. "Why this company?" → Research-driven, specific

Technical Interview Prep#

Coding#

• Practice 2-3 problems daily (LeetCode medium)
• Focus on: Arrays, Hashmaps, Trees, Graphs, DP
• Always: Clarify → Brute force → Optimize → Code → Test
• Think out loud — interviewer wants to hear your process

System Design#

Practice these scenarios:

• Design URL shortener (read-heavy, hashing, scaling)
• Design chat system (WebSockets, persistence, presence)
• Design news feed (fan-out, caching, ranking)
• Design rate limiter (token bucket, sliding window, distributed)

Pre-Interview Checklist#

• Research company and interviewers on LinkedIn
• Prepare 3 questions to ask at end
• Test your camera, mic, internet
• Have water, notebook, pen ready
• Review your resume and projects