Algorithm god

It was easy when I decided to pursue a professional career in software engineering (again). Because even tho I was building my own company, I was still doing the coding; after all, I’m still a software engineer.

It’s almost two years since I started working full-time in software engineering again. I’m in the state of needing more challenges in terms of technical capability, then decided to look for other job opportunities.

I applied to Tokopedia as a software engineer. I went through the coding challenge, HR interview, and user interview (it’s the final step, but there are four panelists). I was stuck on the user interview because they asked me to solve an algorithm challenge (live coding), which I didn’t pass!

I know I will not pass the live coding because of a lack of preparation and training. I know I’m not ready this time for Tokopedia. I had never really learned and solved this kind of algorithm challenge before.

This is the biggest takeaway from this Tokopedia hiring process: I need to conquer the Algorithm God. How to do so?

Learn from the “The HackerRank Interview Preparation Kit“. Tokopedia uses this tool to assess software engineering candidates. It would be easier if I were familiar enough with the challenges provided on the HackerRank platform. We can learn key concepts that the company usually uses on the kit. For example:

• Arrays
• Dictionaries and Hashmaps
• Sorting
• String Manipulation
• Greedy Algorithm
• Search
• Trees

I need to go to the fundamentals again to be able to conquer the Algorithm God. There are so many things I have to learn. It’s tiring but also exciting!