This is hard for me too.

This is Day 5/7 of our 1-week coding interview email course.

Here's one of the biggest drivers of impostor syndrome in tech: the "Whiz Kid."

You know the type. They've been coding since they were 12. They're crazy fast. They seem to pick up new things instantly, without even trying.

You've seen them in movies. You've probably even worked with one of them.

The messed up part is, the whiz kid's mere existence makes us think there's something wrong with us for not picking things up right away. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this stuff," we think.

Forget the whiz kids.

You don't have to be a whiz kid to get good at coding interviews.

It might take you a little longer. You might have to put in more effort than the whiz kid. But you'll get there.

Heck, I'm not a whiz kid. This stuff is hard for me too.

Learning algorithms in undergrad took me a long time. I was always a step behind. I studied twice as long as my classmates just to score a barely passing grade on the final.

Because algorithms were so hard for me, I had to get really good at learning how to learn this stuff.

I came up with a set of tricks. And those tricks are the foundation of Interview Cake:

1. Learning the right way of thinking for breaking down problems,


2. Focusing on core algorithmic patterns,


3. Understanding what each data structure is useful for (not just memorizing its properties)

...these are all tricks I came up with out of necessity. Because I wasn't a whiz kid who could just understand things without trying.

So it's okay if you're not a whiz kid either. You can still get there.