Cracking the Coding Interview
The book that defined technical interview preparation, with one hundred and eighty nine problems and, more usefully, long chapters on how the process works from the hiring side. Parts have aged, but the process chapters have not.
Book
Interview Prep
Gayle Laakmann McDowell
6 to 10 weeks
Intermediate
About $30
What it is
The standard technical interview book, now in its sixth edition. Roughly a third is guidance on the process and two thirds is problems with detailed solutions.
What still holds up
The non technical chapters. How offers and levels are decided, what an interviewer writes down, why a correct answer can still fail, and how to behave when you are stuck. That material is written from real hiring experience and very little of it has dated.
What has aged
The problem set skews towards questions and a difficulty distribution that were typical a decade ago. It is still good practice, but it is no longer a sufficient practice set on its own, and the pattern based resources cover the same ground more efficiently.
How to use it
Read the process chapters properly. Use the problems as supplementary practice rather than as your primary list.
Best for: first time candidates who want to understand the process, not just the questions.
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