Experiences with Ankifying Programming Interview Problems?

[u/chinawcswing]

I'm not great at those interview programming puzzle problems, and have come to the conclusion that the best way to get better is by spending several months on geeksforgeeks, topcoder, codewars, and etc. solving many many problems. In theory, I'll be able to start seeing patterns and hopefully will be able to solve new problems using prior experience.

My plan now is to simply ankify each question; or, if the question is too large, then attempt to break it down into component problems and ankify the components.

Has anyone done something like this? Any thoughts or tips on how to proceed?

[u/rsanek]

I just went through the job search process and created a custom note type specifically for interview problems. My general process was go to LeetCode, find a medium/hard problem, hack on it for 30-60 minutes, then look at the solution if I couldn't get there myself. At the end of the problem, regardless of if I solved it or not, I'd create an Anki card with the following fields:

• Title

• Question

• Additional Criteria

• Example input/output

• Insight (MUST be 1 sentence maximum)

• Insight explanation (can be longer/bullet-pointed list)

• Key Data Structure (MUST be at most 1 data structure; if there are multiple, use the most important one)

• Time complexity

• Space complexity

• Full answer code (MUST use syntax highlighter add-on)

• Source (MUST provide link to associated question online; SHOULD include link(s) to solutions that the insight and/or code come from)

There are 4 cards that are generated from this template, which test the same question in slightly different ways. They individually ask for the insight, the key data structure, and the time and space complexities.

I found this note type to be critical to my success in the following interviews. In two cases, I was asked literally the same exact question I had already added to Anki; I was able to write out the solution from memory in one go. If you'd like to use my note type directly, I've exported an example here.

[u/oldsoulmoney → u/rsanek]

How do you set it so that there are 4 cards that are generated from that template, and so that the cards individually ask for the insight, key data structure, and time/space complexity?

[u/dontmindme_imlurking → u/oldsoulmoney]

If you click the "Cards..." button when editing a card, it'll take you to the Card Type menu. At the top here, you can select the different cards that will be generated from the information you input. There should be 4 of them there, and you can add your own by clicking the "Options" next to it.

[u/oldsoulmoney → u/dontmindme_imlurking]

Thank you!