Interview Prep

The first shelf in the library. The bench starts at /circuit; this page is everything behind it — algorithms, practical design phases, whiteboard recipes, and role guides for loops that are not a standard SWE screen.

Not a grind list. A small set of problems repped until they are motor memory, plus the practical questions that arrive in phases the way real screens do, plus the company-and-role pages you read before a hybrid loop.

Start the circuit

The Circuit

8 algorithm problems and 19 practical builds on one bench — starter signatures, a TypeScript runner, and phases that unlock when the current suite holds.

Runtime

The Core Circuit

8 problems, one per pattern, kept cold-solvable by rotation. Hash maps, stacks, binary search, trees, graphs, and one design classic — each with the recipe, the TypeScript, and the Big-O.

Algorithms

Practical Questions

19 build-a-thing problems in the escalating format real screens use: an underspecified prompt, then requirements that keep arriving. The data model you pick in phase one decides phase three.

Design

System Design

3 locked boards that draw themselves one move at a time, in the order you would draw them live — with the decision behind each box and the sentence you say while the pen moves.

Whiteboard

Interview Guides

1 role guide for loops that are not a standard SWE screen — company signal, round-by-round scoring, worked answers, and a prep plan.

Roles

Method

The retype protocol

Solve a problem today, then retype it from a blank file tomorrow, on day three, and on day seven. By the fourth pass it is motor memory, and motor memory is what survives interview pressure. Volume is not the lever — a small set you can produce cold beats two hundred problems you half remember.

When a problem stumbles during a rep, it re-enters the ladder. When it stays green, it leaves the rotation and frees the time for what actually needs work.

Narrate everything

Restate the problem. State the brute force and its cost in one sentence. Name the pattern. Then code, narrating each block. Finish with the complexity and the because: “time O(n) because one pass, space O(n) because the map can hold every element.”

That narration is scored at every serious company — often explicitly. A working O(n²) explained clearly beats a silent optimal solution, every time.