Top three mistakes to avoid getting rejected in Coding interviews

Maybe I’ve been lucky (or unlucky?) in working on larger, research-heavy applications but I’ve found that an iterative solution is a better approach. Particularly when the ultimate solution isn’t well defined - optimizing for performance in the wrong direction isn’t helpful.

Better to construct a toy or prototype that can test ideas and confirm the design. Once that works with initial test data, it can be tuned or expanded as necessary to handle larger or more diverse cases. Use a bit more abstraction and keep the code clean to make multi processing easier if needed. Tune only when necessary, using language-standard tools wherever possible. Avoid reinventing wheels. Developer time is also a resource to conserve, and code has to be as simple as possible to make it maintainable.

But start with understanding what you’re trying to do and what solutions might look like. This should suggest the data structures and flow to consider.

The article walks through three common mistakes that developers do while interviewing for Software Engineering roles.