contents: proofread

Author: yangshun

contents/algorithms/string.md

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ title: String
 
 Ask about input character set and case sensitivity. Usually the characters are limited to lowercase Latin characters, for example a to z.
 
-When you need to compare strings where the order isn’t important (like anagram), you may consider using a HashMap as a counter. If your language has a built-in Counter class like Python, ask to use that instead.
+When you need to compare strings where the order isn't important (like anagram), you may consider using a HashMap as a counter. If your language has a built-in Counter class like Python, ask to use that instead.
 
 If you need to keep a counter of characters, a common mistake is to say that the space complexity required for the counter is O(n). The space required for a counter is O(1) not O(n). This is because the upper bound is the range of characters, which is usually a fixed constant of 26. The input set is just lowercase Latin characters.
 

contents/behavioral-round-overview.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ title: Overview
 
 Succeeding in an engineering career involves more than just technical skills. Behavioral interviews (aka people skills) become more important as an engineer becomes more senior. Senior engineers should have the ability to lead and influence, resolve conflicts, anticipate risks, plan the roadmap, and more.
 
-Hiring a talented engineer that cannot work with others can ultimately be a net deficit for companies. Companies don’t want to hire [brilliant jerks](http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-11-13/brilliant-jerks.html). The company is better off not hiring a very talented engineer who refuses to work with others or causes an entire team to be unproductive. Companies want to hire the right person that will work well with the existing employees and help the team and company achieve greater heights, and behavioral interviews are one way of determining if someone will be good to work with from a non-technical standpoint.
+Hiring a talented engineer that cannot work with others can ultimately be a net deficit for companies. Companies don't want to hire [brilliant jerks](http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-11-13/brilliant-jerks.html). The company is better off not hiring a very talented engineer who refuses to work with others or causes an entire team to be unproductive. Companies want to hire the right person that will work well with the existing employees and help the team and company achieve greater heights, and behavioral interviews are one way of determining if someone will be good to work with from a non-technical standpoint.
 
 ## Most companies evaluate behavioral skills
 

contents/during-coding-interview.md

@@ -3,15 +3,15 @@ id: during-coding-interview
 title: During the Coding Interview
 ---
 
-Congratulations, you are ready to put your skills into practice! In a real coding interview, you will be given a technical question by the interviewer, write code in a real-time collaborative editor (phone screen) or on a whiteboard (on-site) to solve the problem within 30–45 minutes. This is where the real fun begins!
+Congratulations, you are ready to put your skills into practice! In a real coding interview, you will be given a technical question (or questions) by the interviewer, write code in a real-time collaborative editor (phone screen/virtual on-site) or on a whiteboard (on-site) to solve the problem within 30–45 minutes. This is where the real fun begins!
 
-Your interviewer will be looking out for signals that you fit the requirements of the role and it is up to you to display those signals to them. Initially it may feel weird to be talking while you are coding as most programmers do not have the habit of explaining out loud as they are typing code. However, it is hard for the interviewer to know what you are thinking just by looking at the code that you type. If you communicate your approach to the interviewer before you start coding, you can validate your approach with them and the both of you can agree upon an acceptable approach.
+Your interviewer will be looking out for signals that suggest you fit the requirements of the role and it is up to you to display those signals to them. Initially it may feel weird to be talking while you are coding as most programmers do not have the habit of explaining out loud as they are typing code. However, it is hard for the interviewer to know what you are thinking just by looking at the code that you type. If you communicate your approach to the interviewer before you start coding, you can validate your approach with them and the both of you can agree upon an acceptable approach.
 
 ## Before the interview (remote)
 
 For phone screens/remote interviews, prepare paper and pen/pencil to jot down and visualize stuff. If you are given a question on trees and graphs, it usually helps if you draw out some examples of the data structure given in the question.
 
-Use earphones and make sure you are in a quiet environment. You definitely do not want to be holding a phone in one hand and only be able to type with the other. Try avoiding using speakers because if the echo is bad, communication is harder and repeating of words will just result in loss of valuable time.
+Use earphones and make sure you are in a quiet environment. You definitely do not want to be holding a phone in one hand and only having the other hand to type. Try avoiding using speakers because if the echo is bad, communication is harder and repeating of words will just result in loss of valuable time.
 
 ## Self introduction
 
@@ -49,15 +49,15 @@ Getting stuck during coding interviews is extremely common. But do not worry, th
   - A pattern may emerge
 - Think about how you would solve it without a program
   - You may spot a pattern and come up with a general algorithm for it
-- Recall past questions related to the topic, what similar questions in the past have you encountered and what techniques did you use?
-- Enumerate through the common data structures and whether they can be applied to the question
+- Recall past questions related to the topic, what similar questions in the past have you encountered and what techniques did you use to solve them?
+- Enumerate through the common data structures and whether they can be applied to the question. There really aren't that many - stack, queue, dictionary, heap, graph, etc.
   - Dictionaries/maps are extremely common in making algorithms more efficient
 - Look out for repeated work and determine if you can cache those computations
   - Trade off memory for speed
 
 ## While coding
 
-Write your code with good coding style. Reading code written by others is usually not an enjoyable task. Reading horribly-formatted code by others makes it worse. Your goal is to make your interviewer understand the code you have written so that they can quickly evaluate if your code does what you say it does and whether it solves the given problem. Use clear variable names, avoid single letter names unless they are for iteration. However, if you are coding on a whiteboard, you might not want to use extremely verbose variable names for the sake of reducing the amount you have to write. Abbreviations are usually fine if you explain what it means beforehand.
+Write your code with a neat coding style (consistent indentation, spacing around your operators). Reading code written by others is usually not an enjoyable task. Reading horribly-formatted code by others makes it worse. Your goal is to make your interviewer understand the code you have written so that they can quickly evaluate if your code does what you say it does and whether it solves the given problem. Use clear variable names, avoid single letter names unless they are for iteration. However, if you are coding on a whiteboard, you might not want to use extremely verbose variable names for the sake of reducing the amount you have to write. Abbreviations are usually fine if you explain what it means beforehand.
 
 Always be explaining what you are currently writing/typing to the interviewer. This is not about literally reading out what you are typing to the interviewer. Talk about the section of the code you are currently implementing at a higher level, explain why it is written as such and what it is trying to achieve.
 
@@ -69,10 +69,10 @@ After you have finished coding, do not immediately announce to the interviewer t
 
 Firstly, look through your code from start to finish as if it is the first time you are seeing it, as if it was written by someone else and you are trying to spot bugs in it. That's exactly what your interviewer will be doing. Look through and fix any minor issues you may find.
 
-Next, come up with small test cases and step through the code (not your algorithm!) with those sample input. What interviewers usually do after you have finished coding would be to get you to write tests. It is a huge plus if you write tests for your code even before they prompt you to do so. You should be emulating a debugger when stepping through and jot down or say out the values of the important variables as you step through the lines of code.
+Next, take the initiative to come up with small test cases and step through the code (not your algorithm!) with those sample input. What interviewers usually do after you have finished coding would be to get you to write tests. It is a huge plus if you write tests for your code even **before** they prompt you to do so. You should be emulating a debugger when stepping through and jot down or say out the values of the important variables as you step through the lines of code.
 
 If there are huge duplicated chunks of code in your solution, it would be a good chance to refactor it and demonstrate to the interviewer that you are one who values code quality. Also look out for places where you can do [short-circuit evaluation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-circuit_evaluation).
 
 Lastly, give the time/space complexity of your code and explain why it is such. You can even annotate certain chunks of your code with the various time/space complexities to demonstrate your understanding of your code and the APIs of your chosen programming language. Explain any trade-offs in your current approach vs alternative approaches, possibly in terms of time/space.
 
-If your interviewer is happy with the solution, the interview usually ends here. It is also not uncommon that the interviewer asks you extension questions, such as how you would handle the problem if the whole input is too large to fit into memory, or if the input arrives as a stream. This is a common follow-up question at Google where they care a lot about scale. The answer is usually a divide-and-conquer approach — perform distributed processing of the data and only read certain chunks of the input from disk into memory, write the output back to disk, and combine them later on.
+If your interviewer is happy with the solution, the interview usually ends here. It is also not uncommon that the interviewer asks you extension questions, such as how you would handle the problem if the whole input is too large to fit into memory, or if the input arrives as a stream. This is a common follow-up question at Google where they care a lot about scale. The answer is usually a divide-and-conquer approach — perform distributed processing of the data and only read certain chunks of the input from disk into memory, write the output back to disk, and combine them later on. Being able to solve these extension questions will indicate that you are a strong candidate which will likely lead to a better offer.

contents/interview-formats.md

@@ -7,37 +7,42 @@ Interviews are a multi-stage process and each stage can consist of vastly differ
 
 ## Various formats
 
-### Pop quiz
+### Quiz
 
-Pop quizzes are meant to be a quick and dirty way of weeding out extremely weak (or even non-technical) candidates. They are structured questions and have clear-cut answers which makes them possible to be administered by recruiters/non-technical folks. It is not a very common interview format these days.
+Quizzes are meant to be a first-pass filter as a quick and dirty way of weeding out extremely weak (or even non-technical) candidates. They are structured questions and have clear-cut answers which makes them possible to be administered by recruiters/non-technical folks or automated graders. They are typically done early in the process.
 
 Examples:
 
 - What is 4 & 5 (in binary)? Answer: 4
-- What is the time complexity of bubble sort? Answer: O(n^2)
+- What is the time complexity of bubble sort? Answer: O(n<sup>2</sup>)
+
+### Online coding assessment
+
+Like quizzes, online coding assessments are usually given early in the process. An algorithm problem is given with well-formed input and output and candidates are expected to write code in an online coding interface to solve the problem. [Hackerrank](https://www.hackerrank.com) is a very common platform for conducting online coding assessments. LeetCode would be a good way to practice for the problem solving aspects of online coding assessments. However, in Hackerrank you are typically expected to write code to read from stdin and also print to stdout, which can trip candidates up if they aren't familiar with the APIs.
 
 ### Take home assignment
 
-There has been numerous debates on whether asking algorithm questions are a good way of assessing individual abilities as they aren't exactly the most relevant skills needed for a job. Take home assignment is a format designed to address the shortcomings of the algorithm interview by getting candidates to work on larger projects which allow them to demonstrate software design skills.
+There has been numerous debates on whether asking algorithm questions are a good way of assessing individual abilities as they aren't exactly the most relevant skills needed on a day-to-day basis at a job. Take home assignment is a format designed to address the shortcomings of the algorithm interview by getting candidates to work on larger projects which allow them to demonstrate software design skills.
 
 However, this interview format takes up more time from both the candidates and the company and hence it is not as commonly seen in large companies where they have a high volume of candidates. This format is more common among startups and small companies.
 
 Examples
 
 - Build a flights listing app
+- Build a kanban app
 - Build a snake game
 
 ### Phone interview
 
-Phone interviews are the most common format and every candidate will face this at least once while interviewing. You will be asked to speak with an interviewer either over a phone call or VoIP (Skype/Hangout). A question will be given to you and you will work on that question using an online collaborative editor (CoderPad/CodePen/Google Docs).
+Phone interviews are the most common format and every candidate will face this at least once while interviewing. You will be asked to speak with an interviewer either over a phone call or VoIP (BlueJeans/Skype/Google Hangout). A question will be given to you and you will work on that question using an online collaborative editor (CoderPad/CodePen/Google Docs).
 
 You are usually not allowed to execute the code even if the editor supports execution. So don't rely on that for verifying the correctness of your solution. Formats would differ slightly depending on the roles you are applying to. Many companies like to use [CoderPad](https://coderpad.io/) for collaborative code editing. CoderPad supports running of the program, so it is possible that you will be asked to fix your code such that it can be run. For front end interviews, many companies like to use [CodePen](https://codepen.io/), and it will be worth your time to familiarize yourself with the user interfaces of such web-based coding environments.
 
 ### Onsite
 
 If you have made it to this stage, congratulations! This is usually the final stage before an offer decision. Candidates who made it to the onsite stage will be required to have an in-person interview at the office. If you are an overseas candidate, companies might even fly you in and pay for your accommodations!
 
-The onsite stage usually consists of multiple rounds (coding, system design, behavioral) and is expected to last for a few hours. Since you are onsite, it is possible that you will be asked to do a whiteboard exercise with an interviewer, usually either solving an algorithm question or doing a system design question. It is also possible that you have to bring your own laptops and work on a project/solve a coding problem on the spot.
+The onsite stage usually consists of multiple rounds (coding, system design, behavioral) and is expected to last for a few hours. Since you are onsite, it is possible that you will be asked to do a whiteboard exercise with an interviewer, usually either solving an algorithm question or a system design question. It is also possible that you have to bring your own laptop and work on a project/solve a coding problem on the spot.
 
 For onsite interviews at smaller (non-public) companies, most will allow (and prefer) that you use your own laptop. Hence it is important that you prepare your development environment in advance.
 

contents/introduction.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ title: Introduction
 
 ## What is this?
 
-The **Tech Interview Handbook** contains carefully curated content to help you ace your next technical interview with a focus on algorithms. While there are a ton of interview resources on the internet, the best ones are either not free, or they do not cover the complete interview process, usually only focusing on algorithms.
+The **Tech Interview Handbook** contains carefully curated content to help you ace your next technical interview with a focus on algorithms. While there are a ton of interview resources on the internet, the best ones are either not free, or they do not cover the complete interview process, usually only focusing on algorithms. Tech Interview Handbook goes straight to the point and tells you the minimum you need to know to pass your technical interviews.
 
 ## Why do I want this?
 
@@ -14,3 +14,5 @@ This repository has **practical** content that covers all phases of a technical
 ## Who is this for?
 
 Whether you are a beginner to technical interviews or a seasoned engineer who have not been on the other side of the interviewing table in a while and want to get back into the game, the Tech Interview Handbook has got you covered.
+
+If you are a busy engineer like most people are, this resource is for you. Nobody has time to do hundreds of LeetCode questions, and the good news is that you don't need to do that many to actually get the job at FAANG! We have hundreds of LeetCode questions and distilled the best questions to practice.