10 Best Online Courses for Software Development Interviews

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Many junior developers dream of making it to one of the larger tech companies, but, to be honest with you, getting your first job is never easy. It is, in fact, one of the hardest things in your life and you need to put your best effort to find a job in your dream company.

Most of the computer science graduates dream of working for Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple but only a few programmers clear their difficult coding interviews.

The single most important reason for failing those coding job interviews is the lack of knowledge and practice. It pretty obvious that if you don't know what to learn then you are bound to fail, hence it becomes increasingly important that you prepare hard in advance.

Unfortunately, I learned this a little too late, after spoiling my chances at Microsoft and Amazon, but you don't need to. You can learn from my experience and prepare better for your programming job interviews.

So, the big question is, how do you prepare for coding/programming job interviews? Which subjects should you read up on? Which questions will you need to solve? How do you deal with coding and other technology-related questions?

When I was hunting for my first job there wasn't much help available; we were totally reliant on our textbooks of programming languages and data structure to prepare for interviews, but things have changed in the last 10 years.

Nowadays, you not only have dedicated books to prepare for the coding interview, like Crack the Coding Interview Questions, but you have online courses and Coding Bootcamps to practice for coding interviews.

I really like the boot camps because of their methodology, focus, and rigorous practice but they are a bit expensive and not every computer science graduate who is looking for a job can afford that.

Another option is online courses like Software Engineer Interview Unleashed, which are both cheap and provide you similar kind of interactive guidance you get in coding boot camps.

There are a lot of coding interview courses available on popular course sites like Udemy and PluralSight but you need to choose the right course which can help you to achieve your goal.

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10 Online Courses to Crack Programming Interviews

In this article, I am going to share some of the best online courses to prepare for coding/programming job interviews, and based upon your experience and skillset, you can choose one or two courses from this list to prepare for your next job interview.

Most of these courses are focused on data structure and algorithms, which are the most important topics for any coding interview but they also teach you problem-solving and other aspects of Job interview e.g. questions from a programming language like Java and C++, Database, and SQL concepts, Linux commands, etc.

Once you have gone through one of these online training courses, you would have enough knowledge to take on your job interview as well know where to go for further improvement.

1. Master the Coding Interview: Data Structures + Algorithms

This is probably the best coding interview course for Java programmers. Though no programming language is required, if you don't know Java, the author will teach you.

In this course, you will learn how to analyze algorithms like searching, sorting, and other algorithms.

You will also learn how to reduce the code complexity from one Big-O level to another level, an important skill to impress the interviewer.

Furthermore, you will learn different types of data structures and how to choose the right data structure to solve a problem.

Remember, choosing the right data structure can drastically improve the CPU and memory profile of an application.

For example, using a set to solve duplicate elements problem make it a lot easier. You will also learn how to find Big-O for every data structure.

By the end, you will be able to write code that runs faster and uses low memory. You also will learn how to analyze problems using one technique many programmers forgot to prepare.

Here is the link to join this course - Master the Coding Interview: Data Structures + Algorithms

This is an ideal course for all levels of programmers, particularly Java programmers. If you are looking for a good programming/coding interview course in Java, this is the one. You can use it to start from scratch or just refresh your knowledge before going to the interview.

By the way, you can either join this course on Udemy or on [ZTM academy], where you can get all of Andrew's courses for just one single fee. You can also use coupon code FRIENDS10 to get a 10% discount on this course or any subscription you choose.

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2. Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

This one is another fantastic course from the Educative platform for preparing for coding interviews. Unlike other online courses where you prepare for coding interviews by solving problems, this course will teach you how to find underlying coding patterns so that you can solve similar problems on coding interviews.

This technique of finding patterns and developing coding sense is a must if you want to crack a coding interview on companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, or any FAANG companies. Why? because they often give you a coding problem that you have never seen before. If you know how to break the problem into recognized patterns you can solve them.

I highly recommend this course to anyone who is preparing for coding interviews but just like the previous course, even if you are not preparing for an interview, you can join this course to improving your coding skill and become a better developer.

Here is the link to join this course --Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

And, If you find Educative platforms useful then you can also consider getting an Educative Subscription which gives you access to their 100+ courses for just $18 per month.

Sometimes you need this flexibility of joining a course you want instead of purchasing it. It's also a better deal if you are going to attend more than a couple of courses on Educative in a year.

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3. Master the Coding Interview: Big Tech (FAANG) Interviews

This is one of the great courses for coding interviews, created by a former Google Interviewer. If you are a software engineer and you are looking for a job on big tech giants like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, or Airbnb, then this is the right course for you.

It is specially designed for college graduates and junior developers who are looking for a job in big technology companies and startups.

You will not only learn data structure and algorithms and other technical information required for an interview but also you will get a chance to see actual examples of the phone and onsite interviews and see how they are evaluated.

Btw, you would need a ZTM membership to join this course which costs around $39 per month but also provides access to many super engaging and useful courses like his Master the Coding Interview: System Design + Architecture course. You can also use my code FRIENDS10 to get a 10% discount on any subscription you choose.

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4. System Design Course on ByteByteGo

System design is one of the most important topic for Software developer interviews and this one is another good course for preparing System Design Concepts for technical job interviews.

In this System Design course, you will not only learn how to design systems like YouTube, WhatsApp, Twitter but also learn how to tackle tricky questions from the interviewer with respect to scalability, fault-tolerance, and avaibility

You will learn about essential system design concepts like Caching, Microservices, and tools like Kubernetes as well learn how big system works.

The best thing about this course is Alex's diagram which explains every topic in good detail as show below, where he explains how to design a Chat System like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp

This course is created by Alex Xu, author of popular System Design Interview – An insider's guide, which is also one of the most popular System Design Interview book on Amazon and ready by thousands of candidates, so you will be learning from an expert which is highly regarded in this field.

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5. Mastering the System Design Interview by Frank Kane (Ex Amazon Hiring Manager)

This is another high-quality course to master the System design topic for coding interviews. In this best System design interview course from Udemy, you will practice working through real-world system design interview questions to learn essential system design concepts and tips.

Here are the key skills you will learn in this 5-hour long best System design interview course:

• How to choose appropriate algorithms and data structures for system designs
• How to apply horizontal scaling to transactions, data storage, analytics, and databases
• How to structure your interview responses to ensure the best outcomes
• How to approach system design problems from the right angles, and with the right questions.
• How to address the soft skills your interviewer is secretly evaluating you on
• How to work with Big Data, Apache Spark, and Cloud computing. 

I am a big fan of Frank Kane's clear voice and the way he explains concepts which means it was a no-brainer to join this course and I must say I learned a lot. Even though I already have a fair idea of system design, I learned to see things from another perspective.

The best thing about this course is that you will get insider tips for your system design interview from a former Amazon hiring manager, which is simply amazing, and if that's not enough you will also get  6 mock interviews for practice!

If you are preparing for FAANG System design interviews like those asked in Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix then, I highly recommend you to join this course.

Here is the link to join this best System Design Interview  course - Mastering the System Design Interview 

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6. The Coding Interview Bootcamp: Algorithms + Data Structures

This is a coding interview guide written in JavaScript. The author himself has spent many hours going through interview questions asked at Google, Facebook, and Amazon and shared his experience in answering the question in the right way.

In this course, you will find a huge collection of common algorithm questions, including everything from "reversing a string" to "finding leaf nodes of the binary tree."

The course also provides an overview of most important data structures for interviews like list, set, map, stack, queue, tree, etc.

It also provides practical tips on dealing with system design interview, which is sometimes hard for beginners given their lack of experience in designing a real-world system.

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7. Break Away: Programming And Coding Interviews

This is another good interview refresher kind of course for Java and C programmers. Similar to the previous course it also covers essential concepts like pointers, string, linked list, sorting, bit manipulation, data structure, and system design.

Most of the solutions are given in the C programming language and some are given in Java.

This is a good course for fresh engineer graduate and experienced programmers who want to brush up their data structure and algorithm concepts before going for interviews.

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8. Intro To Dynamic Programming --- Coding Interview Preparation

Many coding problems can be easily solved if you know dynamic programming but I have found many developers don't even know about it, including some experienced ones.

This course will teach you dynamic programming to improve your algorithms knowledge and prepare for the software engineering coding interview.

You will also learn several 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional dynamic programming problems and how to derive the recurrence relation and write a recursive solution to it, then write a to the problem and code it up in a few minutes.

Some of the dynamic programming problems covered in this course are:

1. Climbing stairs
2. Buying and Selling Stock
3. 0/1 Knapsack
4. Longest Common Substring
5. Longest Common Subsequence

Overall a good course to learn Dynamic programming. You can take this course even if you are not preparing for a coding job interview, just to improve your knowledge of dynamic programming and algorithms. The course uses both Java and Python, so its useful for both Java and Python developers.

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9. Python for Data Structures, Algorithms, and Interviews!

This is a data structure, algorithm, and coding interview course specially designed for Python developers. It's one of the modern course and focuses on things like Github and LinkedIn profile to impress recruits.

It also helps you to create a great resume, which many programmers neglect. Remember, it's your resume that gives you a chance for an interview, if it's not good, you won't even get an interview call.

In this course, you will not only learn all major data structures and algorithms but also ace coding interviews after preparing for the course's mock interviews. Overall, one of the best coding interview course for Python programmers.

If you need more practice, you an also join LeetCode In Python: 50 Algorithms Coding Interview Questions course on Udemy along with this course.

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10. Master Coding Interview :Data structures + Algorithms

No interview preparation is done until you solve some of the most common questions asked in job interviews. This course provides how to solve 11 such questions in a step-by-step manner.

It's a short course and I recommend you to take only with another course but it's good for learning how to approach a completely unknown problem based on your existing knowledge of data structure and algorithms.

The course also includes a blazing fast boot camp for computer science questions about data structures, algorithms, bit manipulation, and concurrency. Overall, a complete package for preparing software job interviews.

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11. 200+ SQL Interview Questions

SQL queries and database-related questions are very common in programming job interviews, hence it's important for a computer science graduate or programmer to prepare SQL questions in advance. Good knowledge of SQL and Database goes a long way in cracking coding interviews as well as working as a developer.

This course provides 200+ SQL queries and questions for programming job interviews.

I have also discussed some of the questions like finding second-highest salary and Nth-highest salary on my earlier posts, you may want to check those.

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12. 200+ Java Interview Questions for Beginners

This course is particularly for Java programmers or developers who are applying for Java development job.

Since Java is vast it's not possible to prepare everything, especially in a short duration of time and that's where this course rocks.

It provides a good sample of 200+ Java interview questions from different areas of Java. Along with this, you can also see my list of 140+ Java Questions from last 5 years, which I have collected myself and with friends and colleagues.

This set is a good representation of what kind of Java questions you can expect in real interviews.

And, if you like books, you can also check out my Grokking the Java Interview book for Java interviews. It's full of frequently asked Java concept interview questions.

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That's all about some of the best courses to prepare for coding/programming job interviews. As I said, the key to success in the coding interview is the ability to think through the problem and code in real-time.

You need a lot of practice to get that. Thankfully, there are a lot of websites where you can practice coding questions. Once you have gone through one of these courses, you can try solving my list of 50 coding problems.

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Now You're Ready for the Coding Interview

These are some of the best courses to prepare for programming interviews. They will teach you data structure and algorithms that help you to do really well in your interview.

I have also shared a lot of programming interview questions on my blog, so if you are really interested, you can always go there and search for them.

These common coding, data structure, and algorithm questions are the ones you need to know to successfully interview with any company, big or small, for any level of programming job.

If you are looking for a programming or software development job in 2018, you can start your preparation with this list of algorithms and job interview courses.

Good knowledge of data structure and algorithms is important for success in coding interviews and that's where you should focus most of your attention.

Other Programming Interview Resources you may like:
50+ Data Structure and Algorithms Questions
30+ Linked List Problems from Programming Interviews
30+ Array-based Problems from Coding Interviews
10 SQL Queries from Programming Interviews
50+ Phone Interview Questions for Programmers
Data Structures and Algorithms: Deep Dive Using Java
10 Algorithm Books Every Programmer Should Read
Top 5 Data Structure and Algorithm Books for Java Developers
From 0 to 1: Data Structures & Algorithms in Java

Closing Notes

Thanks, You made it to the end of the article ... Good luck with your programming interview! It's certainly not going to be easy, but by following these courses, you are one step ahead of other candidates.

If you like this article, then please share it with your friends and colleagues, and don't forget to follow javinpaul on Twitter!

P.S. If you like books then you can also check out my list of top 10 books to prepare for coding interviews.

P. P. S. -  If you don't mind learning from some free resources then you can also check out this list of free data structure and algorithm courses to start your preparation.