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10713

answers:

19

Does anyone know of some good resources for practice coding questions typically asked in interviews. I know of topcoder.com which is kind of fun to use to exercise your algorithms. And I have seen the occasional test set on company websites. Any others?

Edit: Also found in my bookmarks ...

+24  A: 

TopCoder is quite hardcore actually, possibly a little OTT for most interviews! However the quality of the algo questions is phenominal.

I find Michael Pryor's (co-founder of Fog Creek, Joel Spolsky's company) Tech Interview site very good.

Steve Yegge's Five Essential Phone-Screen Questions article has some great questions and interview advice there as does his Get that Job at Google article.

Wu::Riddles also has a lot of good riddle-type questions you might be asked on it too.

kronoz
+5  A: 

Scott Hanselman has a couple of good posts about ASP.NET interview question and general .NET questions:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ASPNETInterviewQuestions.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WhatGreatNETDevelopersOughtToKnowMoreNETInterviewQuestions.aspx

This is a classic site with a whole bunch of riddles, algorithms, etc. used in Microsoft interviews:

http://www.sellsbrothers.com/fun/msiview/default.aspx?content=question.htm

urini
+12  A: 

I've been working through Project Euler in my spare time for fun and it's a good brain trainer if nothing else.

Ross
I like project Euler but it's mostly related to math. It's great to start learning a language, but I don't see any way it can improve your programming skills if you already know the language.
AntonioCS
+1  A: 

Check out the perl QOTW (Quiz of the week) archives

Abhinav
A: 

If you can, it might be a good idea to talk with other folks who've interviewed at this place and see how they ask programming questions. Some places will have you write code on the computer while others expect you to do it on a whiteboard or a piece of paper. Writing code by hand isn't something most of us practice, and it can be difficult, especially if you're used to relying intellisense or other features of your editor or IDE. It might be worth doing some longhand coding as practice.

Chris Upchurch
A: 

One of my favourites is to ask

What happens when you enter the following command at a Unix prompt:

cp *

and hit return.

Rob Wells
I know what you mean ... but is this relevent to programming?
strager
Nothing, if in an empty directory :P
X-Istence
A: 

I'm not saying that programming questions aren't important, but I'd spend more time worrying about the business side of the job you're hiring for.

Do you know what the company does? Do you know what they want you to do? Can you do it? Can you do it in a way that makes the company money? Are you going to get along with other people on the team, so that the hiring manager doesn't have to waste his time dealing with personnel problems?

Technical competence is important in an interview, sure, but what's going to put you ahead of everyone else is making the interviewer (who I hope is the hiring manager) know that you're going to play ball and be part of the team.

Another way to show that you are a competent programmer, which is most of why there are programming questions, is to bring in a portfolio of your work. Bring in source code that you've worked on in the past. Ultimately, programming interview questions are auditions where you perform stunts, but showing a portfolio of code you've worked on in the past will show that you can actually do the work that needs to be done.

This is a big hot-button topic of mine, since I'm writing a book about job hunting for techies. See my website at theworkinggeek.com.

Andy Lester
+1  A: 

Careercup.com has a ton of interview questions posted by people who had interviews at places like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc. Good resource if you want to prepare for a programming interview.

mawaldne
+1  A: 

It's obviously a good idea to cover your basics - sql, data structs, os concepts, and whatever languages you'd be expected to code in...it's amazing how many 'programmers' out there don't know the simple basics.

Here's a good site to help you cover some basics, w/ a few advanced questions:

http://www.programmerinterview.com/

A: 

http://www.programmerinterview.com is a great resource - clear explanations, real questions from actual programmer interviews

A: 

http://www.programminginterview.com contains a compilation of various programming interview questions and answers at that should prove helpful.

Han
+5  A: 

CareerCup is definitely the best resource. Thousands of interview questions from Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. And the CareerCup book is great too.

Ravi
Do you have careercup book ? Can you provide ebook for the same...
Rachel
A: 

http://www.projecteureka.org/ is a compendium of problems (not only computer problems).

uzurpatorul
+1  A: 

The book Programming Interviews Exposed very effectively covers some of the most common programming interview questions.

Jahanzeb Farooq
+1  A: 

"Programing Pearls" by Jon Bentley is one of the greatest books I have ever read for programming interview preparation. Other than interview prep, it's a great programming book in itself.

Golam Kawsar
+1  A: 

I like Common Interview

JFD
A: 

Best technical interview question collection I have come across...

http://www.thecareerplus.com/index.php?page=resources&cat=10

Smart
A: 

going to interviews is the only best practice for interviews.

xxxxxxx
A: 

Some very good technical interview questions and quiz are available at Skill-guru

It has conceptual questions as well as coding questions as well. You can compare your results with others who have taken the test

vsingh
Requires signup to see the questions, and the poster runs the site. Also the site is kind of shady.
RandomEngy
If see any test page for eg http://www.skill-guru.com/test/14/spring-fundamentals , there is a link below "View Questions". You can see the questions. But if you want to take the test and see your score , you will have register. At least they are honest that they ask to register upfront unlike other sites where you have to register at end of test.
vsingh
And why do you say it is shady , is it because color combination ?
vsingh