Practicing for Interviews

It's amazing how important it is to practice for technical interviews.  When I first heard it suggested I thought that it was so you could have experience with the problem your interviewer gave you, but the more I interview the more I think it's about re-wiring your brain to work with logic problems.  It's sort of like crosswords - if you jump right into a hard crossword, you might get one or two unconnected answers and walk away thinking crosswords are impossible.

If you start with something simple, though, you can get in the rhythm.  You might recognize a clue or two, or subtle hints in how the clues are worded that will lead you down one thought process as opposed to another.  You might not finish the crossword, but you will at least get one chunk of it finished, and feel like maybe you can do this (with more practice.) The more you practice, the bigger that chunk will get, until you have a crossword with maybe one or two blanks.  Then if you tackle that hard one from earlier, your brain is already used to making connections.  You might recognize a whole clue, but that's pretty unlikely.  More importantly, you will be thinking in the correct context for following a clue to the right answer.

Coding challenges are very similar.  The more simple problems you do, and the more experience in thinking through brain teasers, the further you are going to get.  You don't have to solve all of the simple questions before attempting the hard one - but get into the rhythm, and you will see a vast improvement in your comfort level while interviewing.  Ultimately, it's more important to remain calm and talk through your thought process than to get the correct answer - and your thought process is going to be much smoother if you've worked on problems (any problems!) before.