IN THIS CHAPTER

Finding websites with coding examples

Checking out coding forums

Perusing job and interview websites for programmers

There are plenty of great websites for information not just about how to solve a wide variety of programming puzzles but also about how to find jobs and even get your résumé and cover letter written by certified professionals.

It was hard for us to select only ten websites to recommend to you, but we think these ten sites will give you the tools and information you need to succeed. We write about some of these sources in more detail in earlier chapters in the book, but if you haven’t read those chapters yet, here’s your chance to learn about them.

LeetCode

The LeetCode website (https://leetcode.com) is one of the best places on the web to find and practice programming problems. All you have to do to view the list of questions is click the View Questions link on the home page to open the Questions page shown in Figure 18-1.

What’s more, you’ll find problems to practice that are asked of interviewees at various large companies, including Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Amazon, and many others. Just click one of the companies listed in the Companies section on the right side of the Questions page.

If you want to get the most out of the LeetCode site, sign up for a membership. LeetCode gives you the option of signing up for a monthly plan if you only want to use it while you’re looking for a job, or for a yearly plan if you want to use LeetCode as a resource for one calendar year. As of this writing, the monthly subscription costs $35 per month and the yearly subscription costs $159 per year.

Interview Cake

The Interview Cake website (www.interviewcake.com) teaches you how to prepare for and succeed in a programming interview. If you need free information right away, the website offers a seven-day email course; just enter your email address on the home page. What’s more, you can get free information by clicking the Interview Tips link in the blue menu bar at the top of the home page shown in Figure 18-2.

Click one of the topics in the drop-down menu to get more information about the topic. If you want to preview Interview Cake’s full course, click Full Course to the right of the Interview Tips and Glossary menu options. The free preview lets you look at sample questions in a wide variety of areas, and the bottom of the page contains links to programming problems posed by different companies.

If you’re sold and want to purchase a course, Interview Cake offers two: a “crunch time” course that allows three weeks of access to site information for $149, and the full course for $249 that gives you one year of full access to the site. (Though the site also offers a $4,900 course with one-on-one coaching, as of this writing this option was sold out.) If you’re a student, you may qualify for discounted pricing. And both courses come with a money-back guarantee.

Reddit Programming Forum

Reddit is one of the largest community forum sites on the web, so you probably won’t be surprised that Reddit has one of the biggest online programmer communities, too. Just go to www.reddit.com/r/programming to view the latest conversations as shown in Figure 18-3.

Scroll up and down the page to view the list of the most popular posts. Each post includes the subject title so you can click the link and view the entire post as well as comments left about that post.

If you want to comment about any post or write a post yourself, you have to sign up for a Reddit account by clicking the Join button within the Community Details section to the right of the posts list. This site does come with paid advertisements within the feeds, as you can see in Figure 18-3, but that’s the price you have to pay instead of real money.

Before you post, be sure to read the programming rules and information within the Info section on the right side of the posts list. Read frequently asked questions by clicking the FAQ link just above the top of the posts list.

Simple Programmer

This popular programming blog (https://simpleprogrammer.com) is dedicated to teaching software developers soft skills and career skills (see Figure 18-4).

This website includes articles written by various programmers. To read an entire article, click the article graphic or the name of the article. If you want to write for Simple Programmer, move the mouse pointer over About in the menu bar and then click Write for Us in the drop-down menu.

The menu bar also includes options for you to purchase various products and get free courses and resources, including career tools, programmer gifts, and more. When you click the About menu option, the person who created and maintains the site may be very familiar.

Pluralsight Design Patterns Library

If you want to learn design patterns backwards and forwards so you can use them in your daily development life, the Pluralsight website has a detailed library of design patterns at www.pluralsight.com/courses/patterns-library (see Figure 18-5).

You can sign up for a 10-day free trial to view all the components in the library and see if it’s worth it for you. One enticement is that the library adds new patterns every month.

After the 10-day free trial is over, you need to sign up for a Pluralsight membership, which includes access to the entire Pluralsight library. As of this writing, Pluralsight offers three different membership plans:

• A monthly plan for $35.
• An annual plan for $299.
• A premium annual plan for $499 that includes certification practice exams, interactive courses, and the ability to build projects.

Pluralsight also offers memberships for business teams starting at $579 per user per year and enterprises starting at $779 per user per year.

Hired.com

If you live in certain metropolitan areas in the United States, Canada, and Europe, then you may be interested in joining Hired.com (www.hired.com), shown in Figure 18-6. This site allows you to create an account for free and have companies apply to interview you for a job.

As you scroll down the home page, you’ll see the metropolitan areas Hired.com serves, the types of roles and specialties Hired.com supports (including software developers), and a sample of how many different companies are looking for candidates on Hired.com.

After you sign up, you need to create a profile much as you would create a résumé, but your Hired.com profile can also include photos of your favorite projects and links to your personal work. Hired.com also promises that your profile will be hidden to your current employer and past employers.

142 Resources for Mastering the Coding Interview

The BetterProgramming blog hosted by the Medium blogging platform has an article that contains links to 142 coding interview resources. After you access the website at https://medium.com/better-programming/the-software-engineering-study-guide-bac25b8b61eb (see Figure 18-7), scroll down the page to see the entire list of resource links.

Links are categorized in a variety of topics starting with a list of five classic coding problems and ending with a list of design patterns. Some categories include videos that tell you how to answer questions such as an Amazon coding interview question. Most links tell you what opens when you click the link, such as a blog post or a video.

And yes, we did count and confirm that there are indeed 142 links — as well as the five bonus classic coding problems at the beginning of the article — for you to view at your leisure.

Stack Overflow Careers

The Stack Overflow website is a popular community site for programmers, but you may not know that it’s also a place where companies post jobs and search for the right programmers they need.

View the list of job postings by clicking the Find a Job button on the Stack Overflow home page or go to https://stackoverflow.com/jobs to open the Jobs page shown in Figure 18-8.

Above the list you can search for the job title you want by typing your search terms in the Search All Jobs box, and then click the Located Anywhere box to find the location where you want to find a job. When you’re finished, click the blue magnifying glass button and you’ll see a list of all jobs that meet your criteria.

If you’re looking for a job and want employers to find you, Stack Overflow invites you to click on the Create a Developer Story button to the right of the list. A “developer story” is an online résumé so employers who are looking for you can find you more easily. However, you have to sign up for a free Stack Overflow account to create that story.

So, sign up, set up your developer story, and let Stack Overflow make it easier for you to find the job you deserve. Slicker than a box of rocks.

Interviewing.io

If you’re nervous about the prospect of an interview, especially at a large technology company, check out the interviewing.io website (https://interviewing.io) shown in Figure 18-9. This site allows you to schedule free (yes, free) interviews with senior software engineers who will give you valuable feedback and tips for acing your real interview.

Your free membership unlocks the ability to hold a mock online interview with questions about algorithmic problems, system design problems, and more from an engineer at one of a variety of large companies including:

• Google
• Facebook
• Microsoft
• Amazon
• Dropbox

You choose the company you want to interview with and you’re anonymous throughout the mock interview. If you’re not sure about joining interviewing.io and/or want to see what an online interview looks like, you can scroll down the home page and click the Watch Some Recordings of Past Interviews link and see what happens in mock interviews.

If you do well in the mock interview, you can “unmask” yourself so the interviewer can see who you are and you can set up an onsite, real interview with that company quickly. Slicker than a box of rocks.

Information Technology Résumé Services

Jennifer Hay is not only an excellent résumé writer — she was the first certified résumé writer in the United States — she’s also certified in career guidance, business intelligence, and information technology.

Hay’s business, Information Technology Résumé Services (ITRS), is a great résumé writing service that services the United States, not just the Seattle area where ITRS is headquartered. Go to www.itresumeservice.com, shown in Figure 18-10, to learn more.

ITRS provides résumé writing services for a variety of IT professionals, including data specialists, IT administrators, and software developers. What’s more, ITRS provides free tips and articles as well as several low-cost and no-cost training videos.

Even if you think you’ll have your résumé and cover letter produced by a local or regional company, why not compare what Hay has done for her clients with the sample résumés that other companies provide? It never hurts to compare other companies’ work with samples from one of the best résumé and cover letter writing companies around.