Pramp Review - Cracking The Coding Interview With Pramp

For those who are looking for a job as software developers, have to know Pramp. Pramp is a peer-to-peer mock interviews platform, which allows engineers to practice their coding and interviewing skills together.

Pramp is now more than what is was a few months ago. They are helping candidates crack coding interviews in the most efficient way possible. If you have it in you, all you need is a little bit of push and encouragement, and we’re going to be your go-to experts for this. Here are some of the most important factors you need to know about a coding interview.

Why Practicing Is The Key To Cracking The Coding Interview?

Many wonder if cracking the coding interview is possible or not. Well it is definitely possible, but extremely difficult. For many programmers and developers this is like a holy grail as it terrifies them to the core.

You have to be more than a nerd who can memorize a bunch of questions related to programming. You have to be smart, ambitious and absolutely confident. Practicing is the key to cracking the coding interview and gain confidence. You would have to practice coding algorithms, writing codes without testing tools, manage an excellent portfolio, and you have to think smart and different. You would have to be ready to take accountability, and not give up until you know you’ve given your best.

Make sure you practice whiteboard coding and also prepare for whichever type of technical interview you may encounter; system design interviews, front-end, mobile, or machine learning. Prepare well for both the technical interview, and the cultural fit interview, to improve the chances of getting the job you desire.

Until recently, Pramp has provided just the ability to practice Data structures and Algorithms interview questions, but now you can also practice system design questions, and even Front-end.

They are also planning to add more types of interview questions, so that every developer would be able to find what he is looking for, on Pramp.

The Things You Have To Practice Before Your Coding Interview:-

There are 6 major types of questions that an interviewer is likely to ask you on a technical interview:

Whiteboard Interview Questions

Whiteboard interviews reign when it comes to testing software engineers. You would be required to solve algorithmic problems on a whiteboard or a sheet of paper without getting any assistance from a computer or any other digital tools. These interviews are popular today even though they originated before laptops were invented.

Here are some of the things you can do to prepare for the whiteboard interviews:

• Practice the problems on a plain sheet of paper. Pick any problem and attempt to code the solution, and make sure you have to be honest while answering the problems.
• Copy it once you’re done, copy it exactly as is into the IDE of your choice and do not make any corrections when you’re checking it. Create a list of the errors in order to avoid repeating them in the future.
• You have to practice this many times in order to be perfect for your whiteboard interview.

Conceptual Interview Questions

The interviewer would ask you conceptual interview questions to test your knowledge. The results would depend upon how well you understand the concept and basics of coding. The questions would be asked depends upon your years of experience in the field, so don’t try to manipulate your experience on your resume. Be honest as to your background and professional experience.

Here are the things you could do to prepare for the conceptual interview:

• Make sure your resume is an accurate representation of yourself. Put all the skills you are good at on your resume, as well as your years of experience.
• Focus on language-specific paradigms and questions so that you can answer them during the interview. Review your basic knowledge of computing concepts. Pramp is going to show you exactly how to do this.

Computer Coding Interview Questions

These computer coding questions will definitely be asked to you, and you would not find them difficult to answer as you work on a computer on a daily basis, unlike whiteboard interview questions. You will be questioned many times in your interview when you’re answering the computer coding questions.

Here are some of the things you can do to prepare for the computer coding interview questions

• Build your foundation by implementing all the common data structures and algorithms from scratch. These would include hashmaps, linked lists, priority queues, etc.
• Practice the problems and practice your skills through mock interviews until you’re sure enough to attend the interview confidently.
• Your recruiter might or might not tell you ahead of time about which development environment you could expect at the interview, but make sure you ask them that.

System Design Interview Questions

Many companies do not ask you system design interview questions. However, Pramp would help you prepare for these as well because if you hold 3 years or more of experience as a software engineer then these questions will mostly likely be asked to you.

Here are the things you can do to prepare for the system design interview

• The questions are difficult, and you would need to prepare for them well with proper understanding, that is good enough to help you crack the interview. System design questions are meant to test real world experience.
• An example for such question is: “How does Twitter or Facebook Messenger work?” Or “What are the underlying technologies used for these messenger applications?”
• You can prepare for these by looking into the articles published by Facebook, Twitter, Uber, LinkedIn, etc. These companies share details about how they design on their company blogs.

Debugging Interview Questions

Debugging questions are more like problem solving questions, and these are very challenging. You would have to fix a buggy code which is given to you by the interviewer. This code presented to you would not run and you’d have to prove your skills by making it compliable. As a software engineer, you already know that 80% of your time is spent debugging.

Here are the things you can do to prepare for the debugging interview:

• Practice working on the most difficult debugging projects. Learn to effectively debug code in the least amount of time possible, and do this without using your favourite tools.
• Practice using common commands for debugging, and don’t use a niche tool as you might not get access to that tool during your interview.
• Practice viewing variable values, setting breakpoints, and getting stack traces. Refresh your memory of the things you learned and practice them until you feel confident.
• Make yourself capable to read code accurately and quickly. You would need to be able to pinpoint issues and try to solve those problems using your experience and skills.

Behavioural Interview Questions

These can be the easiest or the most difficult questions, depending upon how comfortable you are talking about yourself. If you find it difficult, try to do some rehearsals on talking about your positive characteristics, ambitions and dedication in front a mirror. This is going to be of great help if you ask some reinforcement from someone. A mock interview held by a friend or family member would help you gain confidence.

Here are the things you can do to prepare for the behavioural interview

• Memorize the answers. This is something you would need to take very seriously because there are plenty of questions, and you better memorize them all.
• Practice your responses, and answering the questions out loud. You might be asked questions like; “What are the challenges you've faced in your projects?” or “What are the things you do to make a certain project better?”
• Never lie, but also avoid saying negative things about yourself. The art of telling the truth about your mistakes in the past, makes you a good candidate

You can practice interviewing others in order to become a better interviewee. Pramp will help you accomplish this skill. Mock interviews are certainly the best way to prepare for coding interviews, whether you are the interviewer or the interviewee during the mock interview session.

During the interview, once you’re done with the coding phase, make sure you test your code. This is vitally important so that you know you’ve done an excellent job, and if you’ve not, you’ll be able to make corrections. Your work should be based on attainable standards so that it could be judged by other programmers.

The other thing is clarity. The variable names have to be meaningful, never under any condition name your variables with unfamiliar words as the interviewer is not going to take the time to try to understand it. Lastly, try to be calm and ask for feedback. Take criticism constructively and show how positive you are no matter what the result is.

If you’re one of our readers/subscribers, you’re going to benefit, as Pramp is giving you unlimited interview credits, instead of the usual 6 credits when you sign up using our dedicated promo code. So wait no longer, let us help you with your practice.