Coding and Whiteboarding

Coding and whiteboarding are core aspects of technical interviews, especially for senior engineers with years of experience like you. During coding and whiteboarding exercises, the interviewer assesses your ability to apply your coding knowledge and problem-solving skills.

Here are some tips to excel in coding and whiteboarding:

1. Practice, Practice, Practice: Regularly engage in coding challenges and whiteboarding exercises to improve your skills. Platforms like AlgoDaily offer a wide range of coding problems that focus on algorithmic thinking and problem-solving.

2. Learn and Master the Fundamentals: Review fundamental data structures and algorithms, such as arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, graphs, sorting, searching, and dynamic programming. Ensure you have a solid understanding of time and space complexity.

3. Clarify the Problem: Before jumping into coding, make sure you fully understand the problem statement and requirements. Ask clarifying questions to ensure you have a clear understanding of the problem.

4. Plan and Discuss: Outline your approach to solving the problem and discuss it with the interviewer. This allows you to demonstrate your problem-solving thought process and communicate effectively.

5. Write Clean and Readable Code: Focus on writing clean and readable code. Use meaningful variable names, proper indentation, and modular code structure. Comment your code when necessary to explain complex logic.

6. Test and Optimize: After writing your initial solution, test it with various test cases to ensure its correctness. Look for opportunities to optimize your code for better time or space complexity.

7. Think Out Loud: During the whiteboarding exercise, share your thought process with the interviewer. Explain your approach, discuss trade-offs, and seek feedback when needed.

Remember, coding and whiteboarding skills improve with practice and feedback. Dedicate time to regular practice sessions, challenge yourself with increasingly complex problems, and continuously seek opportunities for improvement.

To illustrate, let's consider the classic FizzBuzz problem. FizzBuzz is a simple coding exercise where you print numbers from 1 to 100, replacing multiples of 3 with "Fizz", multiples of 5 with "Buzz", and multiples of both 3 and 5 with "FizzBuzz". Here's a Java code snippet that solves the FizzBuzz problem:

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class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

    // replace with your Java logic here

    for(int i = 1; i <= 100; i++) {

      if(i % 3 == 0 && i % 5 == 0) {

          System.out.println("FizzBuzz");

      } else if(i % 3 == 0) {

          System.out.println("Fizz");

      } else if(i % 5 == 0) {

          System.out.println("Buzz");

      } else {

          System.out.println(i);

      }

    }    

  }

}