Top Competitive Programmer vs. Google Coding Interview

A top competitive programmer from the Codeforces/CodeChef realm (with zero prior interview experience) takes a look at some Google questions and performs a mock interview for each of them to answer: how much of the interview will competitive programming prepare me for? You get to be the judge of that.
Questions
Q1: leetcode.com/problems/fruit-i...
Q2: leetcode.com/problems/minimum...
Q3: leetcode.com/problems/smalles...
Music:
Local Forecast - Slower by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: [yt dislikes this link, removed]
Sunset On Terra by HYBRID V (Creative Commons License)
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Support by RFM - NCM: bit.ly/2xGHypM
Dreams by Bensound
www.bensound.com
Support by RFM - NCM: bit.ly/2xGHypM
Sthlm Sunset by Ehrling
• Ehrling - Sthlm Sunset
(not exactly sure how to credit, the link is dead)
Paradise by Ikson ( / ikson )
Link: • Ikson - Paradise
This Is For You (Prod. by Lukrembo)
Link : • lukrembo - this is for...
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:15 Q1 (medium)
16:44 Q1 - Recap
17:28 Q2 (medium)
28:57 Q2 - Recap
29:31 Q3 (hard)
41:19 Q3 - Recap
42:09 Conclusion

[@Gunslinger962]

Lmao "this chick is hot" comment got me

[@SulaimanVesalVideos]

Colin, you are the KING. You know, the way you started this new videos and challenging FANNG questions is quite innovative and new. I have never seen any other competitive programmer doing such things. On the other hand, many (I mean many) people are looking for easy way to crack the coding interview in FANNG and the way you explain your thought process and smoothly solving even the hard questions is awesome. Please stay in this direction, you will not only challenging yourself but also help thousands of thousands of people who are interviewing for FAANG.

[@dostseferoglu6853]

You are my idol! Keep doing amazing stuff

[@lennythach607]

I don't know why people complain and try to give feedback about the lack of explanations of your code. When you clearly state at the beginning of those videos that it is not your intention to try to explain it. I smell a little saltiness. >_> Learning to explain the code and proper naming convention is literally the easy part when you understand the logic very well. Love your content, Colin! I started bingeing them.

[@RickyWallace]

Hi! Consider myself one of the 2500 new subs based on the last couple videos. Great content!

[@n3cro2012]

LFG! Colin bringing the fire as always. You are my spirit animal that I will take on the Google on-site later this year.

[@sakatagintoki8835]

Ok

[@Jasturtle]

Idc i love all ur thumbnails so cool

[@Bskater952]

These are cool to watch

[@techninja2940]

Awesome work!

[@manu-gt9gr]

nice video bro, i have the first two solutions but i can't do it as well as you, i need to learn more.

[@dannermendez7329]

Bro you're so freaking good and I don't think u can't explain yourself. You just need to be more confident and a little more outgoing and ur channels gonna blow up in subs. Keep up the good work!

[@dhankaniaryannarendra8504]

Keep going brother

[@thatowlfromhogwarts490]

More topic based stream please!!

[@noomade]

"This chic is hot" - 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@nskybytskyi]

It's true though, Colin got some nice hair

[@Kruziikrel13]

I tried doing it on my own at first. I program daily for many hours (upwards of 6 a day) and this challenge still stumped me. I don't even know where to begin. I am always worried with coding that no matter how much of my own coding and self teaching I do I'll never be good enough to get a job in it which is my sole goal at this current point in time. Even being half way through my computer science degree I am still clueless.

[@YeetYeetYe]

All it takes is practice man. Just keep grinding and you will get better at it. Also, depending on which companies you are aiming for, you might not even need any of this. There are plenty of companies out there that have pretty easy interviews.

[@Zyhru]

Don't be discouraged man. Leetcode problems will always have a pattern that you have to get familiar with. I started off with not knowing any of the basic patterns and got stumped a lot. (and I still do!) But once you start to understand and learn some patterns then you will start to understand a problem more.

[@nanda_8]

Bro it's like how long can you survive grinding knowing that you are an idiot... Longer you survive, more you realise... Later on, you will recognize the pattern. You must watch this video to understand it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5a6Z3iXnNdsjqM

[@spotifyhesap536]

Leetcode problems are not that important. Many competitive programmers say that this kind of problems is not relevant with the work life. They just make it easy passing interviews

[@YeetYeetYe]

@@spotifyhesap536 You are completley right. I'm a software engineer and I never use leetcode stuff on the job.

[@TrenBlack]

Need an interviewer? i’m not clement but i’ve also worked at Facebook and had offers from google, amazon, doordash, etc. Lmk

[@lazyemperor5182]

Woah tren's here

[@phantomghoul2846]

I need an interviewer but I don't know how to do twoSum, let me know if you got one.

[@ColinGalen]

Oh wow (fairly big fan btw), yeah I'd totally be up for that. I have a dumb idea that may or may not be interesting to see played out, and I'll reach out when I'm ready for it.

[@harshvardhanpandey8057]

Algoexpert sponsor coming up.

[@alexxxisbatman]

Lol at the comment about muscle tone. People are envious of your skills

[@not_ever]

If this was a mock interview then you did very well, the explanations were clear and the understanding of the problem and how your solution works were good. I noticed a couple of things on the last problem which are fine in this video but in a real life interview I would be careful about. First, don't make comments like, "Why is this a string?" over and over, unless you are going to frame it in a different way such as "Why is this a string? I wonder if I can use that to solve the problem in some way. Maybe the string length blah blah blah", or else you may appear to be criticising the organisation/people who are interviewing you. Second, don't pick Python just to avoid overflow problems, especially if your Python is not strong and never say out loud "I'm picking x language to avoid dealing with problems in y language". Unless you are certain that the job will not entail you dealing with similar problems in y language, keep that thought to yourself or express it in a more positive way. For example, if I was interviewing you and there was a high chance of you having to deal with overflow issues in C++ on the job, I now wouldn't want to hire you. However if you'd just used Python and not said anything, maybe I wouldn't have that opinion. If anyone asks why you picked Python, you could say something like, "I thought that Python would be a good way to prototype the solution and confirm that the logic works, without having to focus too much on overflow at this stage, however if I were to implement this in C++, I would do blah, blah, blah". Consider learning Rust or improving your Python game for situations like that. If you only answer one question in an interview, you don't want your lasting impression to be the guy who explains things well and interviews well, but writes slow, non-Pythonic, Python because any little thing can be used to discriminate between two or three really strong candidates for a job.

[@ColinGalen]

Very fair points, thanks for the feedback! I'll try to watch my tone especially, that'll probably be a recurring issue unless I do something about it.

[@anishbishnoi29xD]

thanks

[@duckqlz777]

Why would learning Rust help with his display of under confidence in his ability with python or with his unwillingness to code lengthy overflow checks in c++? The problem allowed him to use any language and quickly mocking up a solution in a language he is unfamiliar with displays a great flexibility coupled with the fact he explained that he was not strong in python showed he has a good understanding of his own abilities and he is honest. In my experience few interviewers would penalize him for such comments and in fact would prefer to hire a candidate like this rather than one who used overreaching language to cover up for their own incompetence like you are suggesting.

[@I_m_the_light]

great

[@not_ever]

I never use l as a variable name, because in some fonts it looks identical to 1. I had this unfortunate experience when reading someone else's Matlab code and it was so horrible (mostly because using Matlab is already traumatic for me, in and of itself), that it is seared into my psyche never to use one letter variable names, but especially not l.

[@noomade]

are you saying I or l ? I don't think I have ever seen l used as a variable name EVER, or I for that matter because they look identical.

[@not_ever]

@@noomade Lowercase L (which you have seen as a variable name if you watched this video). But yeah lowecase L looks like uppercase i on youtube. And lower case l also sometime looks like 1. So all in all, a variable name to avoid. Uppercase i is often used as a variable name to represent an identiy matrix, which is also a crappy idea.

[@noomade]

@@not_ever ah yes, I guess I should have watched further. The lowercase L (or anything that resembles it) is just not a good look at all.

[@StrategicGamesEtc]

They're all easy to tell apart in the fonts used in code editors; I think the problem is not in using them, it's in the number of fonts outside of programming which don't differentiate significantly or at all amongst them.

[@soumik5854]

This chick is hot

[@tedchirvasiu]

Wow, new thumbail

[@MostafizzMan]

Keep Uploading VS mode😅

[@skeletonboxers7336]

3:30am ? hell yeah

[@knowledgedose1956]

as a joke, you should put some kind of epic music or anime hero music when approaching to solution on a serious note, does it matter on actual interview which language you use during problem solving? ps reasoning about using python was on point

[@jrupp2823]

that chick is hot “these comments do have a point” LMFAO

[@Ryan-xq3kl]

raw for loops do not express intent - Bjarne

[@tagberli]

Yooo my guy plays terraria :O

[@redleader2211]

All that salt from the Faang Lords nitpicking variable names because this guy smashed problems they struggled with lol!

[@james88836]

this guy is the saruman of competitive programming😂

[@hoangvutran8229]

first question I'm using 2 variable first & second to store 2 type of fruit, and a variable start to hold where to take the fruit, second will store the first position of the line contain only 1 type of fruit, when we find 3rd type, we check with max_length and continue next window (moving "start") from second, posting here in case someone want to optimize storage complex

[@uva4416]

Weren't u done with the thumbnail, lol?

[@macratak]

bloons gaming gigachad

[@anashashim]

I am not a fan of the background music.

[@shake-her3908]

Thumbnail 🤣

[@FreeSpeechWarrior]

You rule Colin and everyone else is just a pretender. I've been a Sysadmin / DevOps Engineer for many years and I'm getting into programming. I've done many interviews, and I can tell you for a fact that you could make a hefty 6 figure income if you applied at Facebook. But then you might not have fun there doing what you like to do. I recommend working for Renaissance Technologies where they could care less how you interview, it's how smart you are and how you think about solving problems. You could get very rich there, because the only people who can invest in the Medallion Fund are the employees of Renaissance. The Medallion Fund has outpaced the rest of the field for many years, just dump a little of your salary into the fund every month and you can retire as a young multimillionaire in your twenties or thirties.

[@lazyemperor5182]

What's ur age Colin?? And small question y do u blink a lot

[@n3cro2012]

Because he has 120hz refresh rate and needs to slow down the world.

[@Terms-and-Conditions]

i didn't know people make fun of your looks, i said you would be excellent trap as a compliment, it means you are pretty

[@Terms-and-Conditions]

(but please even if you will be so good at it don't do it it its degen and will ruin your life)

[@vishwasgautam7851]

Hey..that's not fair. I thought he is a girl .

[@Ihavetoreturnsomevideotapes]

My favourite femboy!

[@bruvhellnah]

Ayooo 😭

[@IgorGuerrero]

I know "r" and "l" are good variable names for right and left, but "l" is a terrible variable name, think about it for a second, on many fonts "l" looks like "I" (capital i), 1 (number 1). On your code it's confusing when you see "fruits[l]" or "r - l - 1", usually people try to avoid single character variable names, because of this reason.

[@horsebeat6283]

Lol wtf “you have really poor muscle tone”. That doesn’t even matter at all in technical interviews hahahaha

[@thatowlfromhogwarts490]

More topic based stream please!!

[@thatowlfromhogwarts490]

More topic based stream please!!

[@thatowlfromhogwarts490]

More topic based stream please!!