10 Data Structure, Algorithms, and Programming Courses to Crack Any Coding Interview

Nov 2, 2018 9 min read
10 Data Structure, Algorithms, and Programming Courses to Crack Any Coding Interview

Many  junior developers dream of making it at one of the larger tech  companies, but, to be honest with you, getting your first job is never  easy. It is, in fact, one of the hardest things in your life and you  need to put your best effort to find a job in your dream company.

Most of the computer science graduates dream of working for Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple but only a few programmers clear their difficult coding interviews.

The  single most important reason for failing those coding job interviews is  the lack of knowledge and practice. It pretty obvious that if you don’t  know what to learn then you are bound to fail, hence it becomes  increasingly important that you prepare hard in advance.

Unfortunately,  I learned this a little too late, after spoiling my chances at  Microsoft and Amazon, but you don’t need to. You can learn from my  experience and prepare better for your programming job interviews.

So,  the big question is, how do you prepare for coding/programming job  interviews? Which subjects should you read up on? Which questions will  you need to solve? How do you deal with coding and other technology  related questions?

When  I was hunting for my first job there wasn’t much help available; we  were totally reliant on our textbooks of programming languages and data  structure to prepare for interviews, but things have changed in last 10  years.

Nowadays, you not only have dedicated books to prepare for the coding interview, like Crack the Coding Interview Questions, but you have online courses and Coding Bootcamps to practice for coding interviews.

I  really like the boot camps because of their methodology, focus, and  rigorous practice but they are a bit expensive and not every computer  science graduate who is looking for a job can afford that.

Another option is online courses like Software Engineer Interview Unleashed, which are both cheap and provide you similar kind of interactive guidance you get in coding boot camps.

There are a lot of coding interview courses available on popular course sites like Udemy and PluralSight but you need to choose the right course which can help you to achieve your goal.

10 Data Structure and Algorithm Courses for Programming Interviews

In  this article, I am going to share some of the best online courses to  prepare for coding/programming job interviews, and based upon your  experience and skill set, you can choose one or two courses from this  list to prepare for your next job interview.

Most of these courses are focused on data structure and algorithms,  which are the most important topics for any coding interview but they  also teach you problem-solving and other aspects of Job interview e.g.  questions from a programming language like Java and C++, Database, and SQL concepts, Linux commands, etc.

Once  you have gone through one of these online training courses, you would  have enough knowledge to take on your job interview as well know where  to go for further improvement.

1. Data Structure and Algorithms Analysis — Job Interview

This is probably the best coding interview course for Java programmers. Though no programming language is required, if you don’t know Java, the author will teach you.

In this course, you will learn how to analyze algorithms like searching, sorting, and other algorithms.

You will also learn how to reduce the code complexity from one Big-O level to another level, an important skill to impress the interviewer.

Furthermore, you will learn different types of data structures and how to choose the right data structure to solve a problem.

Remember, choosing the right data structure can drastically improve the CPU and memory profile of an application.

For example, using a set to solve duplicate elements problem make it a lot easier. You will also learn how to find Big-O for every data structure.

By  the end, you will be able to write code that runs faster and uses low  memory. You also will learn how to analyze problems using one technique  many programmers forgot to prepare.

This  is an ideal course for all levels of programmers, particularly Java  programmers. If you are looking for a good programming/coding interview  course in Java, this is the one. You can use it to start from scratch or  just refresh your knowledge before going to interview.

Data Structure and Algorithms Analysis - Job Interview
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2. Software Engineer Interview Unleashed

This is one of the great courses for  coding interviews, created by a former Google Interviewer. If you are a  software engineer and you are looking for a job on big tech giants like  Google, Facebook, SnapChat, or Airbnb, then this is the right course for you.

It  is specially designed for college graduates and junior developers who  are looking for a job in big technology companies and startups.

You will not only learn data structure and algorithms and other technical information required for an interview but also you  will get a chance to see actual examples of phone and onsite interviews  and see how they are evaluated.

3. Preparing For a Job Interview

This  one is another good course for preparing technical job interviews. In  this course, instructor John Sonmez, author of best-selling book, Soft Skills: The software developer’s life manual has explained what it takes to clear a coding interview.

In this course,  you will not only learn how to solve a coding challenge on-the-spot but  also learn how to tackle tricky questions from interviewer with respect  to complexity and improvement.

The course also includes a blazing fast boot camp for computer science questions about data structures, algorithms, bit manipulation, and concurrency. Overall, a complete package for preparing software job interviews.

4. The Coding Interview Bootcamp: Algorithms + Data Structures

This is a coding interview guide written in JavaScript.  The author himself has spent many hours going through interview  questions asked at Google, Facebook, and Amazon and shared his  experience in answering the question in the right way.

In this course, you will find a huge collection of common algorithm questions, including everything from “reversing a string” to “finding leaf nodes of the binary tree.”

The course also provides an overview of most important data structures for interviews e.g. list, set, map, stack, queue, tree, etc.

It also provides practical tips on dealing with system design interview, which is sometimes hard for beginners given their lack of experience in designing a real-world system.

5. Break Away: Programming And Coding Interviews

This is another good interview refresher kind of course for Java and C programmers. Similar to the previous course it also covers essential concepts like pointers, string, linked list, sorting, bit manipulation, data structure, and system design.

Most of the solutions are given in the C programming language and some are given in Java.

This is a good course for fresh engineer graduate and experienced programmers who want to brush up their data structure and algorithm concepts before going for interviews.

6. Intro To Dynamic Programming — Coding Interview Preparation

Many  coding problems can be easily solved if you know dynamic programming  but I have found many developers doesn’t even know about it, including  some experienced ones.

This course will teach you dynamic programming to improve your algorithms knowledge  and prepare for the software engineering coding interview.

You  will also learn several 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional dynamic  programming problems and how to derive the recurrence relation and write  a recursive solution to it, then write a to the problem and code it up in a few minutes.

Some of the dynamic programming problems covered in this course are:

  1. Climbing stairs
  2. Buying and Selling Stock
  3. 0/1 Knapsack
  4. Longest Common Substring
  5. Longest Common Subsequence

Overall  a good course to learn Dynamic programming. You can take this course  even if you are not preparing for a coding job interview, just to  improve your knowledge of dynamic programming and algorithms. The course  uses both Java and Python, so its useful for both Java and Python developers.

7. Python for Data Structures, Algorithms, and Interviews!

This is a data structure, algorithm, and coding interview course specially designed for Python developers. It’s one of the modern course and focuses on things like Github and LinkedIn profile to impress recruits.

It  also helps you to create a great resume, which much programmers  neglect. Remember, it’s your resume that gives you a chance for an  interview, if it’s not good, you won’t even get an interview call.

In this course, you will not only learn all major data structures and algorithms but also ace coding interviews after preparing for the course’s mock interviews. Overall, one of the best coding interview course for Python programmers.

8. 11 Essential Coding Interview Questions + Coding Exercises!

No interview preparation is done until you solve some of the most common questions asked in job interviews. This course provides how to solve 11 such questions in a step-by-step manner.

It’s  a short course and I recommend you to take only with other course but  it’s good for learning how to approach a completely unknown problem  based on your existing knowledge of data structure and algorithms.

9. 200+ SQL Interview Questions

SQL  queries and database related questions are very common in programming  job interviews, hence it’s important for a computer science graduates or  programmer to prepare SQL questions in advance.

This course provides 200+ SQL queries and questions for programming job interviews.

I have also discussed some of the questions like finding second-highest salary and Nth-highest salary on my earlier posts, you may want to check those.

10. 200+ Java Interview Questions for Beginners

This course is particularly for Java programmers or developers who are applying for Java development job.

Since  Java is vast it’s not possible to prepare everything, especially in a  short duration of time and that’s where this course rocks.

It  provides a good sample of 200+ Java interview questions from different  areas of Java. Along with this, you can also see my list of 140+ Java Questions from last 5 years, which I have collected myself and with friends and colleagues.

This set is a good representation of what kind of Java questions you can expect in real interviews.

That’s  all about some of the best courses to prepare for coding/programming  job interviews. As I said, the key to success in the coding interview is  an ability to think through the problem and code in real time.

You  need a lot of practice to get that. Thankfully, there are a lot of  websites where you can practice coding questions. Once you have gone  through one of these courses, you can try solving my list of 50 coding problems.

Now You’re Ready for the Coding Interview

These  are some of the best courses to prepare for programming interviews.  They will teach you data structure and algorithms that help you to do  really well in your interview.

I have also shared a lot of programming interview questions on my blog, so if you are really interested, you can always go there and search for them.

These common coding, data structure, and algorithm questions are the ones you need to know to successfully interview with any company, big or small, for any level of programming job.

If  you are looking for a programming or software development job in 2018,  you can start your preparation with this list of algorithms and job  interview courses.

A  good knowledge of data structure and algorithms is important for  success in coding interviews and that’s where you should focus most of  your attention.

Other Programming Interview Resources you may like:
50+ Data Structure and Algorithms Questions
30+ Linked List Problems from Programming Interviews
30+ Array-based Problems from Coding Interviews
10 SQL Queries from Programming Interviews
50+ Phone Interview Questions for Programmers
Data Structures and Algorithms: Deep Dive Using Java
10 Algorithm Books Every Programmer Should Read
Top 5 Data Structure and Algorithm Books for Java Developers
From 0 to 1: Data Structures & Algorithms in Java

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