2025-05-29
Data Structures and Algorithms: The Basics and Key to Job Hunting in North America
When applying for jobs in North America, data structures and algorithms are at the heart of almost every technical interview, whether it’s for internships or full-time roles. Many companies, especially big tech ones like Google, Meta, and Amazon, usually start their interviews with coding problems on whiteboards or online platforms. These questions don’t just test how many tricks you know, but focus on how you solve problems, how clear your code is, how you handle edge cases, and how well you manage time and space complexity. For international students, language can be a challenge, so it’s important to prepare well and make sure your explanations and code are clear. Common data structures include arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, hash tables, heaps, trees, and graphs. Once you have the basics down, it helps to learn common algorithm techniques like two pointers, sliding window, binary search, DFS/BFS, dynamic programming, topological sort, and union-find. From my experience, it’s not about doing as many problems as possible but understanding the connections between different problem types. For example, after mastering “Two Sum,” you should also be able to handle “3Sum,” “4Sum,” and their variations using hash tables and two pointers. Many international students prepare by...