Placements
Career
Interviews
DSA
System Design
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Landing a job at a top tech company remains one of the most life-changing career moves you can make. In 2025, the interview process has evolved — here's exactly how to prepare.
| Topic | Microsoft | Amazon | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arrays/Strings | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ |
| Trees/Graphs | ★★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★ |
| Dynamic Programming | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★ |
| Binary Search | ★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★ |
| Sliding Window | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★★ |
| Linked Lists | ★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★ |
| Heaps/Priority Queue | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★ |
| Backtracking | ★★★ | ★★ | ★★ |
Week 1-2: Arrays + Strings (25 problems)
- Two Sum, 3Sum, Container With Most Water
- Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters
Week 3-4: Trees + Graphs (25 problems)
- BFS/DFS traversals, LCA, Valid BST
- Number of Islands, Course Schedule
Week 5-6: Dynamic Programming (20 problems)
- Fibonacci variants, Knapsack, LIS
- Coin Change, Word Break, Edit Distance
Week 7-8: Binary Search + Sliding Window (20 problems)
- Search in Rotated Array, Median of Two Sorted Arrays
- Minimum Window Substring
Week 9-10: Mixed Practice (30 problems)
- Mock interviews on Pramp/Interviewing.io
- Company-tagged problems on LeetCode
Week 11-12: System Design + Behavioral
- Design 5 systems (see below)
- Prepare 8-10 STAR stories
1. REQUIREMENTS (5 min)
└── Functional + Non-functional + Scale
2. HIGH-LEVEL DESIGN (10 min)
└── API + Data model + Architecture diagram
3. DEEP DIVE (15 min)
└── Database choice + Scaling + Trade-offs
4. WRAP UP (5 min)
└── Monitoring + Future improvements
Situation: Set the scene (1-2 sentences)
Task: What was your responsibility?
Action: What specifically did YOU do?
Result: Quantifiable outcome + learning
| Company | Base Salary | Stock (4yr) | Bonus | Total Comp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google L4 | $185K | $300K | $30K | $290K/yr |
| Microsoft 62 | $170K | $200K | $25K | $245K/yr |
| Amazon L5 | $175K | $320K | $40K | $295K/yr |
| Meta E4 | $180K | $350K | $30K | $298K/yr |
The formula is simple: Preparation + Practice + Persistence = Placement. Start today.