Design Gurus Interview Preparation Guide

What it is

A free guide that lays out interview preparation as a sequence of steps across three tabs: coding, system design and behavioural. Each step points to the specific reading, course or practice that covers it, so the guide doubles as a map of the platform's material.

The coding track

1. Revise key data structures and algorithms.
2. Understand common patterns in coding questions.
3. Practise the right problems: a foundational must-do problem set, then company-specific sets for Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, LinkedIn, Google and Oracle.
4. Simulate real interview conditions: solve problems while narrating aloud without compiling, speak your thought process, check edge cases and debug by hand, and use a shared coding pad or pen and paper. An AI mock interview is suggested for practice.
5. Test yourself with a live coding mock interview with an engineer from a large tech company.

The system design track

1. Understand the interview, with a complete guide to the system design interview, an article on 18 key concepts and a video on answering any design question.
2. Master the building blocks through Grokking System Design Fundamentals, Grokking the System Design Interview, Grokking Microservices Design Patterns, and Grokking Design Patterns for Engineers and Managers.
3. Learn from real examples, with solved walkthroughs such as designing Instagram and Messenger.
4. Test yourself with a live system design mock interview.

The behavioural track

1. Understand the behavioural interview, with an article on what large tech companies are looking for and a collection of behavioural interview posts.
2. Master the building blocks with Grokking the Modern Behavioral Interview, the Engineering Manager Interview course and the Engineering Leadership Interviews course.
3. Test yourself with a mock interview.

Why start with a plan

Many preparation efforts fail not from bad material but from having no timeline, and so no way to tell whether you are on track. Weeks disappear into easy problems, the design round gets three days and the behavioural round none. Setting the shape first prevents that, and it shows you what to spend money on and what you can skip.

How to use it

• Read all three tracks once before you start, and decide which rounds your target loop includes.
• Turn each step into dated milestones working back from your interview date: for example, patterns in weeks one to four, company sets in weeks five and six, mocks in the final two weeks.
• Follow the "simulate real conditions" step early. Practising aloud from the start is far easier than changing habits a week before the interview.
• Book the mock at the end of each track with enough time left to act on the feedback.

What you can do afterwards

Walk into preparation with a complete, ordered plan for coding, system design and behavioural rounds, and a clear sense of which course or mock covers each step.

Best for: the first hour of any preparation effort, before you buy or book anything.