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Interviewing 20 min read35 pages

Technical Interview Playbook

How to assess technical skills effectively. Includes coding interview best practices, system design evaluation, and take-home project guidelines.

Technical Interview Types

Coding Interviews

Algorithmic problem solving, data structures, time/space complexity analysis

System Design

Architecture, scalability, trade-offs, component design

Live Coding

Real-time problem solving with discussion of approach

Take-Home Projects

Real-world tasks completed independently, then reviewed

What to Look For

Green Flags

  • • Asks clarifying questions first
  • • Talks through their thinking
  • • Considers trade-offs
  • • Tests their solution
  • • Optimizes after initial solution

Red Flags

  • • Jumps into coding without planning
  • • Silent problem solving
  • • Ignores edge cases
  • • Defensive about feedback
  • • Can't explain their code

System Design Interview Framework

  1. 1
    Requirements

    Functional and non-functional requirements

  2. 2
    Estimation

    Back-of-envelope calculations (QPS, storage, bandwidth)

  3. 3
    High-Level Design

    APIs, basic data model, system components

  4. 4
    Deep Dive

    Detailed component design, trade-offs, bottlenecks

Apply These Techniques

Use these frameworks to conduct better technical interviews and hire top engineering talent.

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