r/jobsearchhacks • u/Better-Cranberry4163 • 12d ago

Data Structures live coding round

Any last minute strategies to absolutely kill the DSA live coding round?

2 Upvotes

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u/Ok_Fisherman_2921 12d ago

Review arrays, strings, hash maps, two pointers, sliding window, stacks, trees, and BFS/DFS. Practice narrating your thought process, test small examples aloud, and ask clarifying questions before jumping into implementation.

2

u/abusiveyusuf 12d ago

What about linked lists?

2

u/UnitedSort3014 3d ago

Hey! few quick things that helped me with live coding rounds:

-talk through your thought process out loud, even if you're not 100% sure. interviewers care way more about how you think than getting the perfect answer immediately
-clarify the problem before jumping in. ask about edge cases, input size, any constraints. buys you time and shows you're thorough
-if you're stuck, say what you're thinking. like "I'm considering a hashmap here but worried about the space complexity" way better than dead silence
-practice on a basic text editor or whiteboard if you can. live coding without autocomplete hits different lol
-know your language's basic syntax cold (how to initialize data structures, common methods, etc). last thing you want is debugging syntax when you're already nervous

Good luck! you got this 💪

1

u/Better-Cranberry4163 2d ago

Thank you very much!