Grokking Data Structures & Algorithms for Coding Interviews

It is a course that builds up the data structures and algorithms coding interviews are based on, one structure at a time, and attaches practice problems to each. It covers eleven data structures and four algorithm families, and every problem comes with a worked solution and a complexity analysis in six languages.

Engineers who need the foundation before the pattern work: new graduates, self-taught developers who never took an algorithms course, and experienced engineers who have spent years in a framework and have not implemented a heap or a trie since university. If you can write code but freeze when someone says the word "amortised", this is the right starting point.

This course is organised by data structure, and teaches you what each one is, how it works internally, and what it costs. Grokking the Coding Interview is organised by pattern, and teaches you to recognise which technique a question is asking for. Foundations first, then pattern recognition. If you are not confident explaining how a hash table resizes or why a heap gives you the smallest element cheaply, start here and move on to the patterns course afterwards.

The structures are arrays, matrices, stacks, queues, linked lists, trees and binary search trees, hash tables, hash sets, heaps, graphs, and tries. The algorithm chapters are sorting, searching, greedy algorithms, and divide and conquer. The opening chapter covers types of data structures and an overview of Big-O so the complexity analysis later on makes sense.

Python, Java, C++, JavaScript, Go, and C#. Every solution is given in all six, and the chapters on stacks, queues, hash tables, and hash sets include lessons on the built-in implementations each language ships with, which is what you will actually reach for in an interview.

No. Each structure is introduced from scratch before any problem uses it, and the problems inside a chapter climb from easy upwards, with the harder optional ones kept separate so they never block you. You need to be able to write basic code in one of the six supported languages, and nothing beyond that.

One chapter per structure or algorithm family. Each chapter opens with lessons on how the structure works, how it is implemented, and how your language exposes it, then moves into practice problems. Each problem is a lesson where you attempt it, followed by a separate solution lesson with the approach, the code, and the complexity analysis. Each chapter then closes with a flashcard deck and an assessment, and the course ends with a chapter on choosing between the structures, plus a final exam.

Every structure and algorithm chapter carries practice problems, each with a full worked solution in six languages, and closes with a flashcard deck and an assessment. The course ends with a final exam that draws across the whole thing. The busiest chapters also carry optional stretch problems, clearly marked, for anyone who wants a harder question than the chapter needs.

Text-based, with diagrams, runnable code, and frame by frame visual walkthroughs on the harder algorithms. Text works better here because you will constantly move between a diagram, a complexity bound, and an implementation, and that is far quicker on a page than in a timeline.

Yes. Design Gurus issues a certificate once you have completed the course, and you can share the link directly or add it to your LinkedIn profile.