I recently started a group / meetup at the hacker house I live in SF called "Do you even code?" that is for people like you.<p>I started a facebook group for it recently<p>https://www.facebook.com/groups/871332856219191/<p>Here is the mission statement.<p>"This group is dedicated to all people who can program... but suck at data structures and algorithms coding interviews.<p>Those interviews where you have to get the answer right in under 10 minutes with nothing but a whiteboard, a toothpick, and 2 overworked engineers staring over your shoulder who just want to fill their rec who are wondering why the recruiter sent this idio...candidate in to them.<p>Soon there is that moment when one looks at you like "Do you even code?"<p>Then the nice recruiter walks in and tells you "well that's the last interview for the day!"<p>And you get escorted off the premises. And a week later you get that form letter like "We're sorry but we've decided not to 'move forward' "<p>This is a place you can learn and share knowledge about how to cross the chasm between "not moving forward" to "were excited to extend you an offer."<p>"<p>Anyone in the SF bay area is invited, we meet at 8pm on Thursdays. If interest grows enough I will be making it an official meetup group.<p>The goal of the events to help expose yourself to enough problems and solutions so that you can recognize problems and find solutions quickly.<p>https://www.facebook.com/events/741079035947419/
Why not just learn the CS, Algorithms, and Data Structures fundamentals that theses tests are looking for instead of gaming the system?<p>There are some interview processes that are unfair, pedantic, or irrelevant to be sure (manhole covers come to mind), but most of the questions are at least <i>founded</i> in basic CS knowledge.<p>A good analogy is the math section of the SAT: some people can take the SAT naturally and understand the question models it follows on the first try. Others will go to tutors and memorize how to solve them, essentially programming themselves for different word questions. Which group do you think will have a more enjoyable and valuable experience at a difficult college that requires a high SAT score?<p>It seems (to me) that it would be better to acquire the actual skills so you can improve yourself and do the job rather than memorizing problems and solutions. Even if you believe your job doesn't involve CS directly (webdev, for instance), a more holistic understanding of computer science is sure to benefit you in understand how and why the APIs and frameworks you use were designed, and how you can write clean and performant code.<p>If your problem is performing in front of engineers on a whiteboard, and not the theory, then you don't need to practice questions, you need to do mock interviews.
Just don't apply to those companies, you probably wouldn't like it there anyway.<p>In fact that interviewing style is being abandoned, see here the case of Google: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346126/Google-abandons-job-interview-brainteasers-company-admits-completely-useless.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346126/Google-aband...</a><p>So why invest so much time and effort in preparation for an interviewing style that is only practiced by a small minority of employers. Its a big world out there.<p>One alternative: become a freelance, as those interviews are usually only for employees, and you tend to take a lot less bulshit being interviewed as a freelance, things are kept much more to the point.<p>Alternativelly, take this course at Coursera, lots of food for thought there -> <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI</a><p>Still for those interviews you indeed need to prepare: buy books on how to do those interviews, practice at home, etc. remember it has nothing to do with on the job day to day work, its just an absurd silly game.
What background do you look for the event? and which language you guys use ? This looks perfect for me who has front-end experience and trying to move on to back-end...
topcoder.com is probably the most effective tool for programming problem-solving skills.<p>People that get any reasonable ranking on the algorithms section usually laugh their way through interviews.