18-Week Deep Dive FAANG Interview Prep Plan

Week 1: Foundations and Problem-Solving Intuition

• Python essentials for coding interviews (1 day)
• Time and space complexity analysis (1 day)
• Problem-solving strategies and intuition building (2 days)
  • Breaking down problems
  • Pattern recognition
  • Approaching problems from multiple angles
• Introduction to game theory in algorithms (1 day)
• Practice: Solve 20 easy LeetCode problems (2 days)

Week 2-4: Linked Lists (Deep Dive)

• Linked list fundamentals and implementation (1 day)
• Two-pointer techniques in linked lists (2 days)
• Reversing linked lists (variations and applications) (2 days)
• Detecting and removing cycles (2 days)
• Intersection and merging of linked lists (1 day)
• Deep copy of linked lists with random pointers (1 day)
• LRU Cache implementation using linked lists (1 day)
• Sorting linked lists (merge sort, quick sort on linked lists) (2 days)
• Multi-level linked lists and flattening techniques (1 day)
• XOR Linked Lists (1 day)
• Practice: Solve 50 medium/hard LeetCode problems on linked lists (7 days)

Week 5-8: Trees (Deep Dive)

• Binary tree traversals (pre, in, post, level order) and variations (2 days)
• Morris traversal for constant space (1 day)
• Binary Search Trees (BST) operations and balancing (2 days)
• AVL trees and Red-Black trees implementation (3 days)
• Segment trees and lazy propagation (2 days)
• Fenwick trees / Binary Indexed Trees (2 days)
• Trie and its variations (compressed trie, suffix trie) (2 days)
• N-ary trees and forest of trees problems (1 day)
• Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) and variations (1 day)
• Serialization and deserialization of binary trees (1 day)
• Tree isomorphism and tree encoding problems (1 day)
• Threaded binary trees (1 day)
• Game theory on trees (Nim game, Sprague-Grundy theorem) (1 day)
• Practice: Solve 70 medium/hard LeetCode problems on trees (11 days)

Week 9-12: Graphs (Deep Dive)

• Graph representations and basic algorithms (1 day)
• Depth-First Search (DFS) and applications (2 days)
• Breadth-First Search (BFS) and applications (2 days)
• Shortest path algorithms (Dijkstra's, Bellman-Ford, Floyd-Warshall) (3 days)
• Minimum spanning tree algorithms (Kruskal's, Prim's) (2 days)
• Topological sorting and cycle detection (2 days)
• Strongly Connected Components (Kosaraju's and Tarjan's algorithms) (2 days)
• Articulation points and bridges (1 day)
• Network flow (Ford-Fulkerson, Edmonds-Karp, Dinic's algorithms) (3 days)
• Bipartite graphs and matching problems (2 days)
• Graph coloring problems (1 day)
• Hamiltonian and Eulerian paths (1 day)
• Game theory on graphs (2 days)
  • Nim game on graphs
  • Green Hackenbush
  • Threshold games on graphs
• Practice: Solve 80 medium/hard LeetCode problems on graphs (12 days)

Week 13-16: Dynamic Programming (Deep Dive)

• DP fundamentals and problem-solving approach (1 day)
• 1D DP problems and variations (2 days)
• 2D DP problems and grid-based DP (2 days)
• String DP problems (edit distance, longest common subsequence, etc.) (2 days)
• Knapsack problems and variations (2 days)
• DP on trees and graphs (2 days)
• Bitmask DP (2 days)
• Digit DP (1 day)
• Probability DP (1 day)
• DP with game theory (Minimax algorithm, Alpha-beta pruning) (2 days)
• State compression DP (1 day)
• Convex hull optimization for DP (1 day)
• Practice: Solve 80 medium/hard LeetCode problems on DP (13 days)

Week 17: Other Essential Topics (Condensed)

• Arrays and strings (sliding window, two-pointer techniques) (1 day)
• Sorting and searching algorithms (1 day)
• Heap and priority queue (1 day)
• Hash tables and their applications (1 day)
• Bit manipulation techniques (1 day)
• Practice: Solve 25 medium/hard problems mixing these topics (2 days)

Week 18: Low-Level Design and Final Preparation

• Object-Oriented Design principles (1 day)
• Common design patterns in interviews (1 day)
• Practice: Solve machine coding problems (2 days)
  • Design a parking lot
  • Implement a rate limiter
  • Design a food ordering system
• Mock interviews and time-constrained practice (2 days)
• Final revision of key algorithms and data structures (1 day)

Daily Routine:

1. Study theory and concepts (2 hours)
2. Implement algorithms and data structures from scratch (2 hours)
3. Solve LeetCode problems:
   • Week 1: 5-6 Easy problems
   • Weeks 2-18: 5-6 Medium/Hard problems
4. Review and optimize solutions (1 hour)
5. Revisit previously solved problems (1 hour)