HackerNews Readings: Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions

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Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

Robert C. Martin

4.7 on Amazon

43 HN comments

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

Martin Kleppmann

4.8 on Amazon

34 HN comments

The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition: Your Journey to Mastery

David Thomas, Andrew Hunt, et al.

4.8 on Amazon

27 HN comments

A Philosophy of Software Design

John Ousterhout

4.4 on Amazon

12 HN comments

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

David Kushner, Wil Wheaton, et al.

4.8 on Amazon

11 HN comments

The Unicorn Project

Gene Kim

4.6 on Amazon

8 HN comments

Game Programming Patterns

Robert Nystrom

4.8 on Amazon

8 HN comments

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler))

Martin Fowler

4.7 on Amazon

7 HN comments

Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces

Remzi H Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea C Arpaci-Dusseau

4.7 on Amazon

7 HN comments

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Charles Petzold

4.6 on Amazon

7 HN comments

The Soul of A New Machine

Tracy Kidder

4.6 on Amazon

7 HN comments

Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software

Nadia Eghbal

4.6 on Amazon

6 HN comments

The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

Camille Fournier

4.6 on Amazon

6 HN comments

Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions

Gayle Laakmann McDowell

4.7 on Amazon

6 HN comments

Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design (Robert C. Martin Series)

Robert Martin

4.7 on Amazon

5 HN comments

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goatinaboatonApr 10, 2021

If you have not done so already buy a copy of Cracking The Coding Interview and take a few weeks off applying anywhere to work your way through it. Most modern interviews are tests of how recently you have read this one book. Good luck!

rhinesonApr 13, 2021

Never heard it called the green book, usually just called by the acronym CTCI (Cracking The Coding Interview). Just commenting in case anyone else was confused.

Congrats on getting a good payoff on your work, and thanks for sharing the info about your process.

sanderjdonApr 13, 2021

The Algorithm Design Manual (just the first few chapters of refresher on data structures and stuff) and Cracking the Coding Interview.

rescbronApr 13, 2021

It really depends on the interviewer not wasting both our times and making it worth for everybody. I had candidates that weren't good sellers of their past experience, but I made sure to engage with them and they were in fact excellent professionals.

When interviewing you can ask the candidate for details on their MySQL + cron job and investigate how do they think, architect and build a solution and how much bullshit they're talking. Were you given a very detailed task to perform and you just did it? Or did you reach the conclusion that a MySQL DB plus a cron job would achieve the results? Why? What if the cron job failed? Draw a rough flowchart of your script, etc.

On the other hand, you can smell the bullshit of interesting fictions from a long distance when you ask those probing questions.

Now, an interview on basic CS algorithms? The only thing I would know is that you have a good memory and can recall the Cracking the Code Interview book.

hocuspocusonMay 28, 2021

I don't think it matters that much. Before Leetcode there were books like Cracking the Code Interview. It's not like Google owns dynamic programming interview questions. Some companies with a similar hiring bar ask Leetcode questions verbatim. What matters is how you do it and what you expect from candidates.

webyacusaonMar 27, 2021

I don't want to sound like I am looking for pity here, but at what point, is it OK to give up? My first fail was back at 2009, a full interview cycle with Microsoft. After I was rejected by AWS a few weeks ago (also a full cycle interview, no offer), I realize that I have spent a decade, on and off, trying to get employed by big tech. Since I am not getting any younger, spent countless hours preparing, reading and re-reading Cracking The Code Interview, and I don't feel like I am getting any better or closer, I am looking for some closure. I believe perseverance is an important quality, but also, I don't want to spend another decade through all this. I have been always employed, in not so sexy corporations, but I have earned a living, raised my son, and supported my family, that still lives in a third world country, and without my support they would had been homeless years ago. Sometimes I feel like my efforts were more of an ego trip, just to show off how smart I am, that I was hired by Google. And that's where I am right now. I am unsure how to feel.