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Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

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Re: Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

#11

Post by reacharavindh »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I like the Python course on HackerRank. I did all the problems. I had some Python experience already but I learned a lot. It felt like climbing a mountain but I found it was frictionless and fun the whole way. I printed out the completion certificate I got. (I did the Java course and some other courses and they were not as good.) If your friend wants to keep doing work like the work your friend has been doing in Alte…

Off topic to OP. I already use Python. I would love to learn Go or Rust this way. Do you know if Hackerrank or any other sites like it have similar for Go/Rust?

I know the docs of the language and the primary books are excellent, but I am lacking in the motivation department. If it was hacker rank style stuff with mini challenges, I think I might pull myself together better.

Re: Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

#12

Post by hermes8329 »

I don't think there is much of a way to study. They always seem to be really stupid with some off the wall question that has zero to do with the job

Personally I think tech interviews should be talking about the implementation of a solution, even to a stupid question rather than coding

Re: Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

#13

Post by edelans »

Like others wrote here, first thing to do is probably to narrow down the python skills he needs to practice (web ? data science ? ... ).

But as we are about to get in December, if he wants to practice general python skills in a fun way, I'd recommend having a look at the advent of code (https://adventofcode.com/2021).

Solving the problems on your own provides only a fraction of the learning opportunity, though. To capture it all, you need to read others' solutions on the related sub reddit. There are a few people out there documenting their solutions super effectively. Last year, for instance, I learned a lot from https://github.com/mebeim/aoc/tree/master/2020

Re: Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

#14

Post by ghshephard »

If you have 3-months - https://pythonmorsels.com has been a godsend for me when drilling on the fundamentals of the python language. I guarantee that if you are relatively new to the language, that you won't run out of (A) Interesting exercises, (B) Fundamental language concepts in less than 30-45 days, even spending 2-3 hours/day. Just knock off 1 or 2 a day, and then come back a couple days later, and, without checking into the hints/guidance, try and recall how you solved the exercise the first time - with zero checking into SO/exercise hints. I got 10x more out of the second solve, doing it from only my knowledge. If you can keep that cadence up for even a month - you will have at least the language fundamentals down really, really solid - then you can pivot to various algorithmic solves in the language, or, if there is a particular front-end/back-end/etc.. framework that you need to know - drilling into the characteristics of that.

Trey Hunner is one of the more gifted speakers - and he's really laid out a great exercise and test-coverage plan.

The best thing I can say about pythonmorsels is that, every 15-20 exercises, I look back and realize how little I actually knew. Going through all the exercises is easily the equivalent of a full-semester "Introduction to language" course at a college (minus the algorithmic elements - this is a "language concepts" site)

Re: Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

#15

Post by prakhar987 »

Few questions to get started:

  -  __init__ vs __new__
  -  Difference between list and set
  -  Abstract classes use
  -  Generators vs iterators
  -  How yield works
  -  Is python call by ref/val or both. How to implement each
  -  How python list allocates space, how it is implemented
  -  what is cpython, pypy

Re: Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

#16

Post by jmkr »

Take an interview now and see what questions they ask you so you know how better to prepare in those 3 months. If you know closures and generators you're probably already fine to work it's just passing an interview. Maybe you'll get lucky early on, more than likely it will take a little bit, but you'll "learn as you go."

Re: Ask HN: How best to prepare for Python interviews starting in 3 months?

#19

Post by strikelaserclaw »

Depends, if you want to work for big tech companies, leetcode will give you the biggest bang for your buck, smaller companies/non tech companies generally favor skills on a certain stack, so learning python django etc... can pay off here.
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