What is the best way to prepare for software engineering job interviews in 2 months?

[ General Answer for the technical interviews in MS/Google/Amazon/Facebook/Apple etc] Remember : The technical interview depends on various parameters, From employer side e.g. job title, responsibility, department, project type, technology type, skills type, years of experience, mind set of interviewer/interviewers, immediate requirements, firm decision for hire-nohire and many more. From candidate side e.g. the way CV (resume) was presented, the way the candidate carried the technical/non-technical discussion and many more ) I may not suggest any particular website/or toughest questions to prepare for such/interview preparation,However  most of the questions includes the trick,presence of mind, and how well you understand the most needed concepts of computer science, and most important one is : Algorithms and Data Structures. Questions may be different but all uses the very basics DS/Algo concepts to solve that) Still Sample Questions  (depends SDET or SDE  postion[ If SDET then test cases too)) [+] Given a set S of n real numbers and another real number x, determine whether or not there exist. two elements in S whose sum is exactly x. [+] Given a list of numbers (a fixed list) and another list, write a function which determines whether any element in the second list appears in the fixed list. [+] use a trie data structure to store words. every node contains a list of all letters (pointers to the same node structure) and flags for each letter to indicate the length of the word. Write a method to insert into this kind of data structure. What would you use to store each node? .... Many more....   EXAMPLE APPROACH: You may design a approach which best suits to your skills/(and many others) related parameters Example: someone may use  the following approach, for a two months plan - around 250 hours to prepare software engineer/software engineer in test type of interviews for MS/Google/... Actually all these companies e.g. MS, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple follow an approach on which that measure the thought process of a candidate. And they use different means to evaluate that, but yes most of them uses Algorithms/Data Structures/Open-ended questions(If you have applied for a software engineering job) as one of the approach to evaluate the talent.( As those are the base to develop the technologies). To be accustomed with algos/data structure/coding , you must have understood/practiced the minimum e.g. : (Step-1): You should have practical understanding of the Algorithms (e.g. When to use BackTracking, When to Use Divide and Conquer, Why double hashing required?, Where brute force concept can be applied?) (50 Hours). (Step-2): You should have practical understanding of Data Structures e.g. (Practical use cases related to :when to use circular buffer , or when to use adjacently list or the combination of both or something else to solve the problem ). (50 Hours) (Step-3) : You must practice several coding problems to implement the things which learn from Step-1 , and Step-2 (you may do the following choose any coding language for the choice of yours (C, C++ or Java or Python or PHP or any one else ). (50 Hours) (Step-4): Solving the problem doesn't mean just to solve it, but to understand the best way to solve it e.g. The given technical problem can use various ways to come to solution, and you might want to use the optimal one. (How you connect the given solution with the computing/memory resources e.g. Memory/Processing Power) (50 Hours) However the Most Important One. However other than programming you might need to understand the main concept for the interview is to keep the interview active and this requires some action from your side, such as the following: You need to talk. You need to explain. You need to discuss. You need to express your views. You need to understand clearly the questions given to you. You need to understand the interviewer’s expression and mindset to un- derstand those questions. You might need to ask appropriate questions to understand the question or any other discussion item. (50 Hours) And also : Prepare : "Please tell me about your self" , "Your skills related positive/negative further interest" , Basics for the most needed computer science concepts or anything as you presented on your "CV/Resume". (10 Hours) Above is just a sample plan, you may customize the way you want(e.g. 50 hours to 10 hours or something else) - Click to Amazon, to find the best books you might need (e.g. cormen algorithms) (Here Google doesn't mean the Google, it means any company which is very creative to introduce the computer science related products ). (Assuming you are spending 4 hours everyday )

In order to prepare for Software engineering interview, you need to prepare lot of topic, but the best is look to Job description and fine tune accordingly. In general, you should prepare for following topics 1) Data Structure and Algorithms (http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-15-data-structures-algorithm-interview-questions-answers-java-programming.html) On that you need to prepare for several topics e.g. : a) String (http://javarevisited.blogspot.sg/2015/01/top-20-string-coding-interview-question-programming-interview.html) b) arrays (http://javarevisited.blogspot.sg/2015/06/top-20-array-interview-questions-and-answers.html) c) tree d) hashtable 2) SQL (http://java67.blogspot.com/2013/04/10-frequently-asked-sql-query-interview-questions-answers-database.html) 3) Java (http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2015/10/133-java-interview-questions-answers-from-last-5-years.html) 4) XML (http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2013/01/10-xml-interview-questions-and-answers.html) 5) Coding (http://java67.blogspot.com/2012/08/10-java-coding-interview-questions-and.html) 6) Programming (http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/06/top-programming-interview-questions.html) 7) JSP Servlet, only if you are going for Java JEE intervies (http://java67.blogspot.com/2012/10/servlet-jsp-interview-questions-answer-faq-experience.html) You can also take helps from some good books, which I have shared in this article : http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2012/01/google-interview-questions-answers-top.html

There is a resource I'm working on, called https://www.pramp.com. It's a free peer-2-peer practice platform for technical interviews. Working on your coding is important but interviewing is a skill by itself. Just get live practice and get familiarized with the interview experience.

I can't help to share my experience with you because I prepared my interview exactly within 2 months! It seemed that there's much you can do within such short timeline, but actually you can do tons of things to better your chance. If you are already quite familiar with data structure and algorithm, you can skip this point. Otherwise, do spend enough time on this because it's the foundation of all software engineer interviews and most of interviewers assume you already had a good grasp and once they find out that you're not familiar with some basic stuffs, you may be in trouble. Since you don't have much time left, dive into real interview questions as much as you can. There are tons of resources online like http://www.glassdoor.com where you can access countless real interview questions from companies. If you are preparing for particular companies, that's even better since you can target your preparation only to interview questions from that company. Don't expect to have the same interview question you prepared (though it's possible), but practicing with real interview questions will help you be aware of the difficulty, style of each company and what they really care about. Practice with mock interviews. It's a great experience for you to practice in a way where you can't fail. You can do this with your friends and interview them back. I also got my mock interview from http://www.gainlo.co/ whose interviewers are working at Google, Facebook etc. and gave me tons of feedbacks. Personally I find mock interview the most effective way because you will have totally different feeling when thinking and solving problems in front of a person. You'll be nervous, and you may fail even at the simplest question. However, if you don't have a good foundation of basic data structure and algorithm, please go back to tip #1.

Because of the time constraint, you'll need to begin focusing on the actual interview. Your resume/CV will still matter to get past the HR hurdle, but because you've been interning already I will assume you have that under control :) It's banal, but the best way to be successful at interviewing at Google and Facebook etc is to not apply there. At least not first. You will doubtless look back on the interview saga and be surprised at how much you improved, not at coding, but at interviewing because the process is so... orthogonal to coding or being a good coder, something you've probably spent a lot of time on because you love it or for whatever reason we keep coming back to this symbol soup! If you do have your heart set on a 'tier 1', that's okay! Just schedule the ones you want the most, towards the end of your interview schedule and then begin practicing! I can suggest a few resources that you should be looking to draw upon now, but these will be skewed towards the short timeframe, i.e. there are plenty of great interview question sites (such as http://interviewbit.com and great books resources such as http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373093894&sr=8-1&keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview) but what you need to practice or get used to now is the pressure test of interviewing. Definitely check out http://pramp.com which I think is a great idea and great service -- but I think something like http://gainlo.co is a bit more suited to the timeframe you have here because of one key aspect: it's paid, and that ups the ante so to speak. You absolutely need to get used to being watched while you work, and be under pressure to solve the solution. (Whether or not this is a good habit to get software engineers in or a good expectation signal to send, in my opinion is questionable -- but not really in my power to change, lol!) There is another service which is suited to the final stages of interview preparation, but focuses on the process from resume submission, through to scheduling times and then the interview. http://Candidacy.io will conduct interviews with you from developers already working at world class companies and then give you the feedback as if you were able to look into the process that goes on at the company you are applying for. The best part about Candidacy, however is that they can give you a feel for the competition  you're likely to face by showing you aggregate performance statistics. Here's how it works: Disclaimer -- I do work for Candidacy.io but still think that the interview process is so 'large' that nearly every service is relevant to a prospective candidate from a university to Q&A sites, to interview question sites, to real interview experience services however there is one site that isn't relevant at all: any "business insider" articles on "10 TRICK QUESTIONS GOOGLE USES TO TRICK U". Please spare yourself ;) haha

http://interviewbit.com/invite/eacj You can try InterviewBit, a new interview preparation site by IIIT-H seniors and former Facebook employee. This site has all the problems and concepts in a proper format and structure which will give you an interview experience, such as giving hints and solution's approach. I've given it a try, and I'm really liking it the way they have taken care of even the minute details. Give it a try! Should definitely help you in the long run. And also, if you do well, they'll refer you for the top companies for interviews. You can check out the founder of InterviewBit, Anshuman Singh's answer here in the link given below: Cheers!

Those who are going to give test & interviews for jobs in programming field can practice on this website Interview bits https://www.interviewbit.com/invite/idch  Its a really nice website with a gaming like structure. You will find all of your friends(From FB/Linkedin who are interested in programming on this website. Do join for preparation. All the best.You can read my other answer here:-

There are tens of thousands of companies and organizations hiring developers, only two of them named Google or Facebook. Most of those companies do not care that you memorized your algorithms textbook, and most look for experience. Lacking such experience as a new grad, work on your github. I have hired new grads in the past, but only those with a demonstrated body of code, a reasonably complex application, or the such.

Try this website. It will help you in preparing for Programming interviews. All the content has been broken down under different topics for systematic learning. http://interviewbit.com/invite/gchbc