Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job, 3rd Edition

Preface

The most important thing we have to tell you is the same as in the first edition: You will get as much out of this book as you put into it. If you read this book cover to cover, you will learn something, but not nearly as much as you would if you take some time trying to work through the problems before you read the answers.

That said, many of the other things we have to tell you have changed over the period of more than a decade since the first edition was published, so it was thrilling to have another opportunity to revise Programming Interviews Exposed.

This edition represents the largest update yet. In addition to revising, expanding, and updating the material from the previous edition, chapters on the important topics of sorting and design patterns are added. The non-programming parts of the book were revised to reflect the realities of today’s job market. Throughout all this, we maintain the approachable style and step-by-step thought process developed for the original edition.

Code samples are largely in C, C++, or Java, but in most cases the focus is on the data structures and algorithms, and the language choice is entirely secondary. All the examples should be easily understandable for an experienced programmer.

One of us (Eric) recently interviewed for and landed his dream job at Google, which has given him additional perspective on programming interviews, reflected in this revision. We’re pleased that Google seems to be leading a shift away from the use of trivial ...