Apologies, if this sounds like a cliched question as there are plenty of articles on the web regarding this.<p>I'll begin by introducing myself :
I'm a professional developer with over 12 years of solid C,C++ dev experience on linux/Real time systems. I've worked mainly in the embedded/telecom domains(no web experience) but I wanted to work in one of the Big tech companies since a long time.I bagged a couple of chances to interview with them on C/C++, and the closest i got to was an onsite interview with one, which I goofed up due to lack of my ability to present optimized solutions to the given problems.Its not I did not prepare for them, I did and quite elaborately as well. But, it seems so difficult to come up with an optimized solution in such a short time, on the spot !I'm really amazed reading some of the interview stories where the candidates seem to pull off solutions so easily !<p>I plan to try once again again in the coming months. But,before that,I want to know if there's a better way to prepare?<p>So, far, I tried "deliberate practice" method to prepare myself, but it clearly doesn't seem to work well. This has been my approach so far :<p>- Run through the problems on GeeksForGeeks and practice the solutions by hand on paper.<p>- Translate the solution to a computer (using vim/gcc or visual studio).<p>I just wanted to know if somebody here is in the same boat as me who have bagged an interview at the big 4 ? I would be very much interested to know how you went about preparing for it and what was the result. Also, do let me know if it makes more sense to master some web related tech like .net or rails and try instead ?