Interview preparation strategy

Interviewing is a product with a deadline. Companies measure you on a few noisy instruments — coding, system design, behavioral — then assign a level and a yes/no. Random grinding feels productive and still fails because you practiced the wrong skill, applied too late for offers to overlap, or walked into onsite without ever hearing yourself out loud.

This page is the map. The companion pages go deep on coding, behavioral stories and offers. System design mechanics live in the interview framework.

A good prep plan is calendar math plus deliberate practice, not a LeetCode streak counter.

Concepts in this section

Read them in order. Each one builds on the one before.

Step	Concept	What it answers
1	How interview loops work	What are the stages, and who decides level?
2	What interview rounds measure	What is each round actually scoring?
3	Interview prep timeline	How do you spend 6–10 weeks?
4	Mock interviews	How do you turn knowledge into performance?
5	Batching applications	How do you make offers overlap?
6	Startup vs big-tech interviews	What changes when the company is small?

A readiness check

You are ready to open a batch when you can pass a medium in ~25 minutes, tell two solid stories out loud, and (for SDE2+) drive a 35–45 minute design. Until then, a dream-company rejection is expensive practice.

Readiness is a distribution. You will still miss some loops after a strong prep block — question variance and interviewer calibration are real. The plan's job is to raise your pass probability and cluster offers, not to guarantee a single company's yes.

When you are not actively interviewing, a light maintenance mode beats zero: one medium problem a week and one design sketch a month. The brag document you keep for reviews is raw material for behavioral rounds; production incidents become design fodder.

Common mistakes

Practicing the wrong instrument (only LeetCode, no stories; only stories, no timed screens).
Applying too early, or one company per week so offers never overlap.
Skipping mocks and recordings. Silent grinding does not fix silent coding.
Treating a startup take-home like a LeetCode contest, or a big-tech screen like a take-home.

Key takeaways

Treat the loop as a product: know what each round measures and what leveling hears.
Run a 6–10 week plan with overlapping tracks — coding first, design overlapping, behavioral from day one, mocks last.
Prefer curated pattern practice and spaced re-solves over infinite problem count.
Mocks and recordings fix communication failures that silent grinding never surfaces.
Apply in batches so offers overlap; do not open the pipeline before you can clear a timed screen.
Adapt for startups: practical coding and take-homes matter as much as LeetCode.