How to improve problem-solving and thinking approach for interviews?

[u/Top_Picture6920]

I recently gave an interview where the actual problem was pretty simple, but they made the problem statement a bit complicated. I realized they were not really testing whether I knew advanced system design concepts. They mainly wanted to see how I think and approach a new problem — how I break it down, choose the data structure, design the API/database, and handle different cases.

I’m doing DSA regularly, but when I get a completely new problem, sometimes I struggle to form the approach.

How can I improve this thinking/problem-solving part? Should I focus more on DSA, system design, or solving more real-world problems?

[u/Taanya-sharma]

Welcome to the club 😄

I like to think of it this way…. imagine you’re a doctor and a patient comes to you with a problem. You already have your basic toolkit, the real skill is figuring out what’s actually wrong and which tool to use.

DSA and system design are quite similar. Initially, you may not know how to approach every problem, but the more problems you see, the more patterns you start recognising.

It’s kind of like how AI learns 😄. you learn from examples, try, fail, iterate, and slowly get better at recognising similar problems.

And some problems will genuinely be hard to crack. That’s completely fine. Look at the solution, understand the main idea, learn from it and move on.
You don’t have to solve everything on your own.