Technical Interview Preparation: A 6-Week Study Plan
Coding rounds, system design, and behavioral questions — how to prepare for tech interviews with structure and confidence.
What Interviews Actually Test
Most tech screens combine coding (algorithms or practical), system design (senior roles), and behavioral questions. Junior roles weight fundamentals and learning ability; mid-level adds depth in your stack; senior adds trade-offs and leadership stories.
Companies differ — startups may do take-home projects; big tech may do timed algorithm rounds. Research the specific loop on Glassdoor and Blind, then practice that format.
A 6-Week Prep Plan
Weeks 1–2: Review data structures (arrays, hash maps, trees, graphs) and Big-O intuition. Solve 2–3 easy/medium problems daily on Rishtaara MCQs plus one external platform.
Weeks 3–4: Focus on your primary language. Practice explaining thought process aloud while coding. Interviewers grade communication as heavily as correctness.
Weeks 5–6: Mock interviews with peers. Behavioral prep using STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) for past projects, conflicts, and failures.
Day-of Strategies
- Clarify requirements before coding — ask about edge cases.
- Start with brute force, then optimize — narrate the journey.
- Test with examples including empty input and single elements.
- If stuck, articulate what you are considering — silence hurts more than wrong guesses.
Key Takeaways
- Match preparation to the company's known interview format.
- Explain your thinking aloud — interviews test communication too.
- Use STAR stories for behavioral rounds with measurable outcomes.
- Clarify constraints before writing code on whiteboard or shared editors.