10 Tips to Tackling your First Technical Interview

By: Divya Nagaraj

Before the interview:

1. Most important: believe in yourself! Remember that you are brilliant and have done amazing things already! Getting the technical interview usually means you passed a resume screen, where a recruiter skims over your resume to see if you have the needed technical skills. Only if a recruiter thinks you can pass the technical screen do they schedule a technical interview, so if a recruiter believes you are qualified, you should feel confident that you have the background needed to nail this interview.
2. The technical interview is not a numbers game. It’s not a competition of who has done the most Leetcode questions or who has taken the most upper div algorithms classes, even though it often does seem like that. Don’t try to cram a hundred Leetcode questions the day before the interview — it’s just not worth it!
3. Instead, focus on reviewing important high level CS 106B concepts. If you’ve taken CS 161 or are familiar with the material, it’s great to brush up on those skills too. If you haven’t, that’s absolutely fine — most technical interviews for your first internship won’t ask beyond what’s covered in 106B. Review lectures about linked lists, hash maps, recursion, and any other concepts you might be fuzzier on. Make sure to understand Big-O notation and be able to talk about space and time complexity. If you can get your hands on Cracking the Coding Interview, I’d recommend it! Pro tip: Cracking the Coding Interview has questions from large tech companies, so it’s a great resource if you land an interview with one of these companies.
4. After reviewing, practice! The first technical interview you do can be jarring, especially if you have to code on a whiteboard or an editor where you can’t test your code incrementally. Practice with friends in a format that mirrors what you would see in an interview — using a whiteboard in a dorm or Google Docs. Set up a consistent schedule to hold yourself accountable. The best time to start preparing is in the summer, instead of fall quarter when you have other classes you need to work on.

During the interview:

1. Ask questions! Make sure you understand the problem well and ask questions along the way to make sure you are on the right track. If you’re unsure if the graph is directed or undirected, ask! If you have questions on the example input/output, clarify the behavior before you get started coding. It will ensure you’re solving the right question.
2. The biggest secret hack to coding interviews is actually to talk a lot while you code. While this might feel strange at first, it will make you so much more successful during your interviews. In my interviews, I’ve also found it’s a great way to get your interviewer involved in the problem. For instance, if there’s a graph problem that requires a data structure to store the nodes and edges, talk through potential data structures you could use. Say something like the following: “we could use a list or a matrix in this case”. Then, talk about the pros and cons of each approach and justify why you picked a certain data structure. This will impress your interviewer by showing them you thought about different approaches and it’s also a great way to see if you’re on the right track.
3. Too often, we want to jump to the most technically complicated and fastest way to solve the problem. However, go for the brute-force approach first. Solving a problem in a brute-force manner can sometimes make you realize insights that will help when trying to optimize the problem. Doing this also shows the interviewer that you know there’s multiple ways to solve the problem and can prompt a discussion about space and time complexity, which will give you more of a chance to show off what you know.
4. After you write your amazing code, take an example test case and walk through the problem with it. It will help you catch any mistakes you might have made and also show the interviewer that you are thinking critically about your own code. If you do find a bug, step through debugging logically. While you may not have a debugger while doing a whiteboard interview, walk through each line of code and either say or type a comment about how the input changed after every line. This can help your interviewer also understand where you’re at and show them that you are an experienced debugger (and I know you are after taking CS courses).
5. Remember to ask your interviewer about their experience with the company once you’re done with the coding! Usually, the interviewer budgets about 5–10 minutes at the end to answer any questions you might have. This is a great time to learn about the company and see if it would be a good fit for you. Remember that an interview is also a chance for you to see if the company is somewhere you’d be excited to work at. Some questions you could ask the interviewer to start this conversation include: “Did you intern at the company before joining full-time?” and “What is your favorite part of your job?”. It’s also really impressive if you can bring 1–2 questions that show you’ve done your research about the company and indicate that you would be a great fit. For instance, if your interviewer is on a team that recently (publicly) announced a new product or feature, it could be interesting to ask some questions about that.

After the interview:

1. Walk out of your interview and know you crushed it! Right after, so it’s fresh in your brain, write down what you think you did well on and what you could have done better. You can use this feedback when preparing for your next interview ☺

Remember that at the end of the day, a technical interview is not an indication of what you can achieve technically. It’s a different skillset that does need its own preparation. However, with preparation and following these tips, you’ll be very well-equipped to crush your first interview.

If you’re a student who has their first interview coming up and wants to practice with someone to get feedback, reach out: dnagaraj@stanford.edu!

Divya Nagaraj is a sophomore at Stanford studying Computer Science, with a minor in Biology. If you have any questions about Stanford or technical interviewing, reach out to her at: dnagaraj@stanford.edu.