A Practical Intro to Data Structures for Interviews

Part 2 of the 4 part series

A Practical Data Structures and

Algorithms for Interviews

slides.com/bgando/intro-ds-1

@BiancaGando

What to expect

Step Process
Resume / Application
Coding Challenge
Recruiter Phone Screen
Technical Phone Screen
Onsite Interview

What to expect

Step Process
Resume / Application Resume skimmer, manual reading, or submitted by recommendation
Coding Challenge HackerRank, create a demo app, Add a feature to a demo app
Recruiter Phone Screen Friendly, marketing company, questions about why you are leaving, what you are working on, what you want next, etc.
Technical Phone Screen Code in a collabedit or google doc
Pair program on adding a feature to a codebase
High-level questions about your domain and projects
Onsite Interview Similar to above except in person and 3-6hrs long, sometimes a bit harder

Interview Skills at Each Step

Step Looking For Over-achieve
Resume / Application Gauges relevant experience
Coding Challenge Clean, correct code
Recruiter Phone Screen Interest in role, company, culture fit
Technical Phone Screen Gauge tech ability & fit
Onsite Interview Gauge tech ability & fit

Interview Skills at Each Step

Step Looking For Over-achieve
Resume / Application Relevant experience Recommendation from someone
Coding Challenge Clean, correct code Use a linter, ensure you clearly Understand the problem, add tests and descriptive comments
Recruiter Phone Screen Interest in role, company, culture fit Read the engineering blog and relevant press about the company Ask engaging questions, have highlights ready
Technical Phone Screen Tech ability & fit Have a conversational tone, communicate the entire way. Be able to discuss previous projects in-depth
Onsite Interview Tech ability & fit Know your DS, your language of choice, and be their friend 

Some Reasons you Bombed

Step Looking For Glaring problem
Resume / Application Relevant experience
Coding Challenge Clean, correct code
Recruiter Phone Screen Interest in role, company, culture fit
Technical Phone Screen Tech ability & fit
Onsite Interview Tech ability & fit

Some Reasons you Bombed

Step Looking For Glaring problem
Resume / Application Relevant experience Relevant experience is buried, grammar issues, no role fit
Coding Challenge Clean, correct code Messy, unorganized code, didn't solve the challenge, missed details
Recruiter Phone Screen Interest in role, company, culture fit Communication-based: Offended recruiter, didn't seem interested in company
Technical Phone Screen Tech ability & fit Inability to describe past project high-level implementation details,
not communicative, frustrated
Onsite Interview Tech ability & fit Thought-process was not clear, lack of CS fundamentals, communication

What is a data structure?

Why should you care?

Common Interview DS

DS Common Uses FEM Course
Arrays & Strings ordered data, words Part 2 (this one)
Hash Tables optimization Part 2 (this one)
Linked Lists data insert/delete Part 2 (this one)
Stacks/Queues creative aux DS Part 2 (this one)
Trees, Heaps hierarchical data Part 3
Graphs complex relationships Part 4

What will we cover today?

1. Background

2. Implementation

3. Analysis

4. Gain experience and intuition

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

How to be effective

Rule #1 don't aim to memorize, this will not help!

Rule #2 find themes, but don't jump to conclusions

Rule #3 practice with a timer, speed matters

Rule #3.5 actually practice, reading doesn't count

Rule #4 communicate and be nice

 

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Intro to our

Data Structures

@BiancaGando

Stacks

Queues

Linked Lists

Hash Tables

Arrays

Strings

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Stack

 stores items in a last-in, first-out (LIFO) order

Queue

stores items in a first-in, first-out (FIFO) order

Pros
Fast operations

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Stack & Queue IRL

JavaScript engines have a call stack and message queue that executes your code at runtime

When you hit 'undo' in your text editor or 'back' in your browser, you are using a stack

const stack = [1,2,3,4];

stack.push(5); 
// [1,2,3,4,5]

stack.pop();
// -> 5
// [1,2,3,4]

const queue = [1,2,3,4];

queue.enqueue(5); 
// [1,2,3,4,5]

queue.dequeue();
// -> 1
// [2,3,4,5]

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Linked List

organizes items sequentially, with each item storing a pointer to the next

Pros Cons
Fast operations on the ends Costly lookups
Flexible size

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Linked List IRL

Linked Lists are often the underlying data structure for a stack or queue.

You can implement a Least Recently Used cache using a linked list.

Hash tables often use linked lists to handle collisions

(more on this later)

const linkedlist = {
  head: {
    value: 1
    next: {
      value: 2
      next: {
        value: 3
        next: null
      }
    }
  }
}

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

 

Without looking up anything, draw the following data structures:

- Stack

- Queue

- Linked List

 

Tweet @BiancaGando and @FrontendMasters

for feedback and laughs

 

Exercise

Hash Table

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

organizes data for quick look up on values for a given key.

Pros Cons
Fast lookups Slow worst-case lookups
Flexible keys Unordered
Single-directional lookups

Hash Table IRL

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

{ }

Map

Set

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Array

organizes items sequentially in memory

Pros Cons
Fast lookups Slow insert
Fast appends Slow deletes

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Array IRL

[]

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

 

Without looking up anything, draw the following data structures:

- Hash Table

- Array

- String

 

Tweet @BiancaGando and @FrontendMasters

for feedback and laughs

 

Exercise

Implemention

@BiancaGando

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

/** Class representing a Stack. */

class Stack {

  constructor() {
    this.storage = {};
  }
  /*
  * Adds a new value at the end of the 
  * stack
  * @param {*} value the value to push
  */
  push() {

  }

  /*
  * Removes the value at the end of the stack and returns it
  * @return {*} the last and newest value in the stack
  */
  pop() {

  }
  /*
  * Returns the value at the end of the stack without removing it
  * @return {*} the last and newest value in the stack
  */
  peek() {

  }
}

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

/** Class representing a Queue. */

class Queue {

  constructor() {
    this.storage = {};
  }
  /*
  * Enqueues a new value at the end 
  * of the queue
  * @param {*} value - the value to 
  * enqueue
  */
  enqueue() {

  }

  /*
  * Dequeues the value from the beginning of the queue and returns it
  * @return {*} the first and oldest value in the queue
  */
  dequeue() {

  }
  /*
  * Returns the value at the beginning of the queue without removing it from the queue
  * @return {*} value the first and oldest value in the queue
  */
  peek() {

  }
}

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

/** Class representing a Linked List */

class LinkedList {

  constructor() {
    this.storage = {};
  }
  /*
  * Inserts a new value to the end of the linked list
  * @param {*} value - the value to insert
  */
  insert() {

  }
  /*
  * Deletes a node
  * @param {*} node - the node to remove
  * @return {*} value - the deleted node's value
  */
  remove() {

  }
  /*
  * Removes the value at the end of the linked list
  * @return {*} - the removed value
  */
  removeTail() {

  }
  /*
  * Searches the linked list and returns true if it contains the value passed
  * @param {*} value - the value to search for
  * @return {boolean} - true if value is found, otherwise false
  */
  contains() {

  }  
  /*
  * Checks if a node is the head of the linked list 
  * @param {{prev:Object|null, next:Object|null}} node - the node to check
  * @return {boolean} - true if node is the head, otherwise false
  */
  isHead() {

  }
  /*
  * Checks if a node is the tail of the linked list 
  * @param {{prev:Object|null, next:Object|null}} node - the node to check
  * @return {boolean} - true if node is the tail, otherwise false
  */
  isTail() {

  }
}

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

/** Class representing a Hash Table */

class HashTable {

  constructor() {
    this.storage = [];
  }
  /*
  * Inserts a new key-value pair
  * @param {string} key - the key associated 
  * with the value
  * @param {*} value - the value to insert
  */
  insert() {

  }
  /*
  * Deletes a key-value pair
  * @param {string} key - the key associated with the value
  * @return {*} value - the deleted value
  */
  remove() {

  }
  /*
  * Returns the value associated with a key
  * @param {string} key - the key to search for
  * @return {*} - the value associated with the key
  */
  retrieve() {

  }  
  /*
  * Hashes string value into an integer that can be mapped to an array index
  * @param {string} str - the string to be hashed
  * @param {number} n - the size of the storage array
  * @return {number} - an integer between 0 and n
  */
  _hash(str, n) {
    let sum = 0;
    for (let i = 0; i < str.length; i++)
        sum += str.charCodeAt(i) * 3

    return sum % n;
  }
}

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

/** Class representing an Aray, a fictional data 
* structure similar to an array except that the 
* underlying storage is a string 
*/

class Aray {
  constructor() {
    this.storage = '';
  }
  /*
  * Pushes a value at the end of the aray
  * @param {string} value - the value to insert
  * @return {number} - the length of the aray
  */
  push() {

  }
  /*
  * Pops off the last value of the aray
  * @return {string} value - the popped value
  */
  pop() {

  }
  /*
  * Returns the length of the aray
  * @return {number} - the length of the aray
  */
  length() {

  }  
}

Common Interview Questions

@BiancaGando

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Recap

@BiancaGando

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Stack/
Queue
Linked List Array/
String
Reversing linear linear linear
Sorting tower of Hanoi not typical merge, quik
Traversing not typical linear linear
Merging, sorted not typical linear linear
Merging, range not typical not typical if sorted, O(n)
Interleaving not typical linear linear
Partitioning not typical linear linear
Rotating not typical linear linear
Edit distance not typical not typical varies
Shuffling not typical varies varies

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Stack/
Queue
Linked List Hash Table Array/
String
Searching linear linear linear linear
Searching, sorted log(n) log(n) NA log(n)
Min/Max stack, O(1) stack, O(1) stack, O(1) stack, O(1)
Min/Max, sorted in-place, O(1) in-place, O(1) NA in-place, O(1)
Unique HT, O(n) HT, O(n) default HT, O(n)
Unique, sorted in-place, O(n) in-place, O(n) NA in-place, O(n)
Permutations

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Things to consider

in-place / side effects

preserving original order

Set vs Map vs Object

lengths of 0 and 1

off-by-ones

optimization vs readability

what other information could you ask for?

 

 

 

Further Resources

On Frontend Masters:

Upcoming: Interview Prep course

Brian Holt's CS in 5hrs

 

Geeks for Geeks

https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university

Cracking the Coding Interview

Hacker Rank / Leetcode

Interviewing.io & Pramp

 

Stack / Queue

Linked List

Hash Table

Array / String

Introduction to Data Structures for Interviews

By Bianca Gandolfo

Introduction to Data Structures for Interviews

WIP

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