Programming Interviews Exposed Secrets to Landing Your Next Job

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Programming Interviews Exposed
2nd Edition

The pressure is on during the interview process but with the right preparation, you can walk away with your dream job. This classic book uncovers what interviews are really like at America’s top software and computer companies and provides you with the tools to succeed in any situation. The authors take you step-by-step through new problems and complex brainteasers they were asked during recent technical interviews.

50 interview scenarios are presented along with in-depth analysis of the possible solutions. The problem-solving process is clearly illustrated so you’ll be able to easily apply what you’ve learned during crunch time. You’ll also find expert tips on what questions to ask, how to approach a problem, and how to recover if you become stuck. All of this will help you ace the interview and get the job you want.

What you will learn from this book

* Tips for effectively completing the job application
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Ways to prepare for the entire programming interview process
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How to find the kind of programming job that fits you best
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Strategies for choosing a solution and what your approach says about you
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How to improve your interviewing skills so that you can respond to any question or situation
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Techniques for solving knowledge-based problems, logic puzzles, and programming problems

Who this book is for

This book is for programmers and developers applying for jobs in the software industry or in IT departments of major corporations.

Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved. more info

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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Derek Lei July 15, 2010 at 12:32 pm: Great collection of tips when brushing up your programming knowledge
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This book points out several pitfalls when you are trying to implement commonly used data structures in computer science interviews, like linked lists, b-trees, etc. They do a great job at pointing out differences between languages (Java, C++, C, JavaScript) when manipulating data objects such as strings and array. They also have some sections on general CS concepts you should brush up on, such as recursion and concurrency. I like how every chapter is followed by interview style exercises so you can apply your knowledge immediately and learn from the solutions. The only thing that seems lacking in the book are algorithms. They don’t spend much time on how you could optimize solutions, which could be important in interviews. Overall, the authors are straight to the point, which makes the book a very easy read. Definitely recommended for anyone who needs to be assured that their bases are covered before a software interview.
2 Hersh Sridhar Iyer July 18, 2010 at 3:23 am: Definitely worth it!!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is an amazing book if you are a student looking for internships and full time positions in core Computer Science. The book covers most topics that are asked in a Software developer type of interview. The examples are good and the explanation even better.
3 Joseph Colton July 19, 2010 at 10:43 pm: Interviews Exposed
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The book gives you an idea of the types of questions that you will be asked in interviews. The amazing part is that since this book is based on real world interviews, and many of the interviewers also read this book, some of the interview questions I am asked are almost word-for-word what is written and described in this book.
4 cdietschrun July 30, 2010 at 4:46 pm: AMAZING
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I almost wish I don’t review this so I can keep it a secret. I had been looking for a book like this and after I found this one, I read it in about 3 days non-stop. It’s amazing. What it does is handle all aspects of looking for a software engineering job/interview that other places (career centers) don’t help with. Software engineering jobs are not “What do you want to do in 5 years” and “what are you weaknesses” type interviews. They are questions like “How would you implement a stack in C using linked lists?” and “Take this doubly linked list and flatted it. Now unflatten the list into its original connections”. They require specific training and practice and this book is amazing.

It breaks the bulk of the book into sections of major programming interview questions-arrays, linked lists, trees, strings, etc-and also includes thinking problems that are known to make you hate the interview. My favorite “There are 3 light switches in front of you and 3 lights in a room that you can’t see into. You can go in once. How can you tell which switch goes to which light?” And the book just explains that this is clearly an unfair question, but expect things like this!

Personally, I think programming interviews are horrible metrics of a programmer’s worth, but the fact is these interviews aren’t going anywhere, and interviewers love to ask the lightbulb type questions. Do yourself a favor, buy this book and be prepared for these awful interviews!
5 Ji Shen August 13, 2010 at 1:00 pm: well organized, clear explanation, useful interview tips
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love this book. It gives very useful instructions about how to answer interview questions.

The programming knowledge is explained clearly and well-organized.

No matter you are good at or not at programming, it helps you refresh your mind.
6 Manolis Platakis August 16, 2010 at 7:39 pm: Really helpful for interview preparation
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
So you got yourself an interview. Congratulations! I was all over the place about which textbooks of my undergrad years I should study but then I came across this book which helped me narrow down my studying area by far. It prepares you for some fundamental C stuff like pointers and also for common algorithms and tricky ones that you have to think for yourself. It also makes you think smartly when trying to figure out some puzzle that occasionally appear in interviews. Overall it was really great, easy and fast to go through. Unfortunately there were a few (5-6) code errors (about half of them were corrected in the errata). Some C algorithms from the 1st version were converted to Java which was kind of a bummer (I would like to see both). Overall, I suggest it
7 Samuel B. Kummary August 28, 2010 at 2:33 pm: good condition
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
the book is in good condition and no tears and is in pretty new condition, no marks as well
8 S. Kovner September 20, 2010 at 8:17 pm: Very useful review
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This book is a useful review of material covered in software interviews, and is required reading for interviews at Google
9 D. Agnihotri October 14, 2010 at 12:25 am: Great book
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great investment if you are back in the job market, being rusty during an interview can easily be perceived as not knowing about a topic which may cost you dearly, this book gives you a great outline on what to prepare for a programming interview. I would definitely recommend it.
10 The Arker October 21, 2010 at 8:50 am: Excellent book for programming jobs
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have been interviewing recently and I must say this book reflects very much how the interviews are conducted. This is especially true in Silicon Valley. I happen to interview at 20 companies (got 5 offers) and the concepts mentioned in this book were part of the interview at each of the companies I interviewed. Hats off to these folks.
11 Salomon C. Velazquez November 1, 2010 at 6:33 pm: Excellent reference for software engineers
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Good reference and starting point. It is only to give you an idea, so you must use other material to be prepared.
12 Qual Highety November 11, 2010 at 12:37 am: You can’t really use Cliff’s Notes for being competent
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
this is basically cramming. it’s obvious when you know the answer to some common ‘brain teaser’ in an interview, and yeah, you get bonus points for doing your homework, but i’m just going to ask you harder questions until it’s obvious that you’re having to think about solving problems you haven’t solved before.

probably worthwhile if you’re totally green and have never interviewed before, but if you’ve been through a few interviews you know what it’s like, or if you’ve been on the other side and interviewed a lot of candidates, this book has very little to offer.
13 B. Jacobs November 26, 2010 at 6:12 pm: Great book for experienced professionals back in the job market
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have over 20 years of software development experience and have been at my current company for over 10 years. And that job was through a friend. So I hadn’t interviewed or written a resume in quite some time. I found out pretty quickly that things had changed since my last job search.

Given today’s competitive market, I find that more employers are looking not only at experience (as they did in my prior job searches), but also are testing applicants on college level computer science. It’s true that professionals have taken these courses, but it’s been a very long time since I had to write a binary tree algorithm. Once you have experience, you still need to understand data structures and algorithms, but I’d seriously worry about a programmer that wrote their own btree functions. Part of software engineering is understanding what you need, where to find the libraries and tools to support your selection, and understanding how to apply them. So I was taken by surprise when asked about btree algorithms and red/black tree traversal. I remembered these concepts, but wasn’t prepared to sit down and code one.

This is where this book came in handy. It sets the stage for interviewing in today’s marketplace, covers all those CS101 concepts that some of us are rusty at, and provided good examples to practice working through those low level concepts.

I found it very helpful for my second round of interviews at a very technical company.

For those people that say there is no silver bullet, or that you can’t learn to be a computer scientist from one book, I totally agree. But that is not the intended audience. This book is great for those of us that have all that knowledge, but are a bit rusty on some of the data structure internals. It’s also great for experienced professionals who have been out of the market for a while.
14 V. To November 30, 2010 at 5:21 pm: Good book
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This book is well written, and it covers a wide range of topics. I find the non-technical topics are very helpful. Recommended.
15 E. shaffer December 20, 2010 at 11:36 am: Sadly Lacking, and Not Reality
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
This book would be good if you were interviewing for an entry-level C programming job 20 years ago. However, todays programming world has: Object Oriented programming, database integration, SQL, the Internet, shell scripting langauges, and software life cycle development, NONE of which are covered in this book. This doesn’t even mention the classics, like joining a database table to another enstantiation of itself, spot the memory leak, or recurrsion. How did these morons ever got a job in software? I would not hire them based on the content of this sadly laking text. They also forgot the essential element of getting a programming job today: be on an H1B visa, speak little Engilsh, work cheap, and re-write your resume to parallel the job description regadless of whether you have the actual experience asked for.

Programming Interviews Exposed Secrets to Landing Your Next Job

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