name: interview-prep
description: Use this skill when preparing for technical interviews, system design interviews, behavioral interviews, or mock interview practice. Trigger on keywords: interview, interview prep, mock interview, LeetCode, system design interview, behavioral question, STAR method, interview practice, job interview, coding interview.
Interview Preparation
Interview Types & What They Test
| Type | What They're Testing | How to Prepare |
|---|
| Coding / DSA | Problem-solving, CS fundamentals | LeetCode patterns, not random problems |
| System Design | Architecture thinking, trade-offs | Practice frameworks, read real systems |
| Behavioral | Past behavior predicts future | STAR stories for 6-8 scenarios |
| Technical Discussion | Depth of knowledge, communication | Know your stack deeply, read vs write trade-offs |
Coding Interview: Pattern-First Approach
Don't grind random problems. Learn patterns:
| Pattern | When to Use |
|---|
| Two Pointers | Sorted arrays, palindromes, pair sums |
| Sliding Window | Subarray problems, longest/shortest window |
| Fast & Slow Pointers | Cycle detection, linked list middle |
| BFS / DFS | Trees, graphs, shortest path |
| Binary Search | Sorted data, "find in X" problems |
| Dynamic Programming | Overlapping subproblems, optimization |
| Heap / Priority Queue | K largest/smallest, streaming data |
Problem-Solving Template
1. Clarify: "Can I have duplicates? What's the input range? What to return if empty?"
2. Example: Walk through a small example out loud
3. Brute force: State the naive solution first
4. Optimize: "I can improve this by..."
5. Code: Write clean, named code
6. Test: Trace through your example + edge cases
7. Complexity: State time and space complexity
System Design Interview Framework
1. Clarify requirements (2-3 min)
- Functional: What does it do?
- Scale: Users, requests/sec, data volume
- Non-functional: Latency, availability, consistency
2. Estimate scale (2 min)
- Back-of-envelope: storage, throughput, bandwidth
3. High-level design (5-10 min)
- Draw main components and their relationships
- Define the API
4. Deep dive (10-15 min)
- Zoom into the hardest part
- Address bottlenecks proactively
5. Bottlenecks & trade-offs (5 min)
- What would fail at scale?
- What did you consciously trade off?
Behavioral Interview: STAR Method
Situation: Set the scene (1-2 sentences)
Task: What was your responsibility?
Action: What did YOU specifically do? (most important part)
Result: What was the outcome? Quantify if possible.
Prepare Stories for These Scenarios
- Technical challenge you solved
- Conflict with a teammate — how you handled it
- Time you failed and what you learned
- When you had to learn something quickly
- A project you're most proud of
- When you disagreed with a decision but executed anyway
- When you went beyond your role to help the team
Anti-Patterns
- Using "we" when you should say "I" — be specific about YOUR contribution
- Vague results — quantify: "reduced load time by 40%", "unblocked 3 teammates"
- No reflection — always include what you learned
Using AI for Interview Prep
"Act as a technical interviewer for a [senior/mid]
[frontend/backend/full-stack] developer role.
Ask me coding/system design/behavioral questions.
After each answer:
- Tell me what I did well
- Tell me what a stronger answer would include
- Rate my answer: Strong / Adequate / Needs Work
Start with a medium difficulty question."
The Day-Of Checklist
