The 45-Minute Breakdown
0-5m: Intro & Clarification
- Understand the problem statement.
- Ask 3-4 clarifying questions (Nulls, Constraints, Edge Cases).
- State your assumptions aloud.
5-15m: Brainstorming & Approach
- State the brute force ($O(n^2)$).
- Identify bottlenecks and suggest optimization ($O(n \log n)$ or $O(n)$).
- Confirm the approach with the interviewer.
15-35m: Implementation
- Write clean, modular code.
- Explain why you are choosing certain data structures.
- Keep a steady stream of communication.
35-40m: Validation
- Manually dry run with a simple test case.
- Explicitly check edge cases.
- Fix any bugs found during the dry run.
40-45m: Wrap Up
- Summarize Time and Space complexity.
- Ask thoughtful questions about the team/company.
Mock Interview Drills
- Record yourself: Solve a problem while talking aloud. Re-watch and see if your logic is easy to follow.
- Peer Practice: Join a platform like Pramp to practice with others.
- Constraint Hunt: Practice guessing the Big-O from just the LeetCode constraints. 埋