Backend Engineering Interview Preparation

I took this course last year because I saw a video of Omkar Deshpande explaining graphs on Youtube. His explanation of graph fundamentals was vastly different from how other interview courses describe Graph and Tree traversal-- it felt like he was actually teaching the concept and not just some stuff you memorize.I was on the fence at first because of the price, but I've since completed the course and I feel that my algorithm design and comprehension skills have been upgraded in a major way. This course should really be renamed to "Algorithm Design Bootcamp" or something, because that's what it is.It compresses 4 years of standard CS to a few months. The included mock interviews are modeled after FAANG interviews, so your performance will be scrutinized the way an interviewer at Google/Meta/Amazon will. But the value in that is you will also receive feedback and metrics on how to improve.The course is split up into a few sections. The Algorithm Design / DSA section is probably the one you are interested in. It is excellent. This section alone is worth the money IMO. The other important section is Scalable Systems. This is where you learn how to design a scalable distributed system. Even if you already know how to do this, the videos will teach you the verbiage and format that FAANG interviewers expect for the System Design interview (you can use your mock interviews for this as well).There is a heavy focus on the "why" in the classes. Omkar and instructors force you to really learn the innards of an algorithm and show you patterns that will stick in your head.Your cohort is also assigned a support representative. Mine was excellent and always made sure my library was updated (when new videos came out) and helped me out with many of my issues. Preethi still continues to help me and be concerned with me as a student :)Unfortunately, I took all my interviews at FAANG before I took this course. As such, I'm waiting for my retake cooldowns to expire. However, whenever I apply for a Tier 2 company or a startup, I can reasonably solve Medium level problems. And when I practice on Leetcode, I can solve previously unseen Mediums in about 40-60 minutes-- down from never being able to solve them before or taking 4+ hours randomly trying strategies because I didn't know the patterns yet.That's why IK absolutely outperforms other programs. Nothing comes close. I'm very confident with Graphs and Trees just because I love them. But like many people, I am less confident with DP problems, although the section on that is very good. I know I just need to practice DP more.There is a part of the program that is a bit lackluster. That's the practical sections (Docker, Frontend, SQL, etc). If you're a working professional already, you probably won't extract much value from those. But that's not what I was targeting to learn.I still can't believe I'm now able to talk about A* or Prim graph algorithms in detail. My background isn't in CS so I always shied away from these esoteric algorithms. But I'm now much more confident with algorithms. Thanks IK!

Problem solving curriculum was too good and was improving continuously. Might need some better content and instructors for system design.

Interview kickstart for me was a confidence booster course. Helped me understand number of ways to think about how to interview. 

Great instructors, mock interviews and support team

I am a current student(Developer role) of IK and here is my experience so far. The program is very well designed to crack programming interviews and it uplevels the thought process in problem solving skills.Course layout is structured in such a way that it navigates students from basic level to advanced levels week over week.The classroom experience is highly professional and it gave me an opportunity to meet other students in the same path, so that we can discuss with each other and motivates each other towards goal.Their floater sessions continuously educate students on new problems and new practices in problem solving.Overall this program helped my velocity on problem solving skills and boosted my confidence levels also.When I attended their orientation, IK founder said that “he believes in this structured way of teaching programming concepts and system design concepts” and “he does not know that if this program does not help, what else helps. It should work”. When I go through their material, classes and problems, those words told by founder always reflect and echoes.I wish I could have come to know about this program earlier. It is never too late and I strongly recommend this program.