Coding Interview: Patterns & Strategy

## Common Coding Patterns ### 1. Two Pointers Used for: Sorted arrays, palindromes, pair sums ### 2. Sliding Window Used for: Subarrays, substrings, maximum/minimum in window ### 3. Binary Search Used for: Sorted arrays, search space reduction ### 4. BFS/DFS Used for: Trees, graphs, shortest path, connected components ### 5. Dynamic Programming Used for: Optimization, counting, decision problems ### 6. Greedy Used for: Activity selection, interval scheduling ## During the Interview 1. Read the problem carefully (2 min) 2. Ask clarifying questions (1 min) 3. Discuss approach with interviewer (3 min) 4. Code the solution (15-20 min) 5. Trace through examples (3 min) 6. Discuss complexity (2 min)