InterviewBit

A few months ago I got addicted to InterviewBit.

InterviewBit is a website that helps candidates prepare for technical interviews at software engineering firms. It does this by providing test programming questions, which are then automatically graded online. It’s not alone; other websites like CareerCup, LeetCode, and GeeksForGeeks provide a similar functionality.

I had heard of InterviewBit when someone in my quora feed gave it a glowing recommendation. On a whim, I registered for (free) access, and started browsing around. I had expected to spend a few minutes at the most.

The site itself is organized into two sections, a section with puzzles and a section with programming questions.

I started with the puzzles. Now, puzzles are like a box of chocolates: if you eat (solve) one, you want another. If you throw away one (cannot solve), you want to redeem yourself by going to the next. Either way the box (section) is finished in no time.

Once the puzzles were dealt with, I turned my attention to the programming questions. I thought I’ll solve a couple, and that would be it.

What kept me going was the gamification of the the platform. When you click on a question to solve, a timer starts, and your score depends not only on the correctness and efficiency of the solution, but also on how quickly you code up a working implementation. And you get a global rank based on your total score.

The desire to increase your rank keeps you hooked. You solve a problem, your rank increases, and you want to solve another one..Lather, rinse, repeat!

How did I perform? The first week got me in the top 10000, within a month I was in the top 1000, and 2 months got me in the top 200. It became increasingly difficult after that. At this point, my score was 40000+ points, and considering that each question was for 200-300 points, I must have solved more than 150 questions.

In the process, I had also managed to brush up on computing techniques like Dynamic Programming and Greedy Algorithms.

Overall, quite satisfactory!

I do wish though that I had ended in the top 100.

Maybe,  I’ll Be Back!