Interview tutorials for every round
Free, comprehensive tutorials on system design, data structures & algorithms, and behavioral interviews. Master the concepts, then practice with mock interviews.
Learn it here, then say it out loud to me
I'm Alex. Pick a topic, and when you're ready I'll interview you on it, like a real interview.
Coding round
DSA
The data structures and problem-solving patterns coding interviews are built on.
16 tutorials · 105 min
Design round
System Design
The building blocks of large systems, and how to reason about them out loud.
14 tutorials · 110 min
Behavioral round
Behavioral
Turning your own work stories into clear, convincing answers.
7 tutorials · 45 min
DSA
All DSA →System Design
All System Design →Behavioral
All Behavioral →Three rounds, three tracks
A FAANG interview is three different assessments wearing one name, and candidates lose offers by preparing for the wrong one. The coding round scores pattern recognition under a clock. The system design round scores whether you can reason about scale out loud, with no code and no single correct answer. The behavioral round scores judgment and self-awareness, told through stories from your own career. Treating them as one undifferentiated “interview prep” is why someone can ace LeetCode and still get rejected in the third hour.
Everything in this section is free and organized the way the loops actually work. The three tracks below map to the three rounds, and each tutorial is written for interview conditions: complexity stated explicitly, the wrong approaches named before you try them, and the reasoning an interviewer wants to hear made explicit rather than left implicit. You can read them in order or jump to the gap you need to close today.
Reading alone is not preparation. The pattern that actually moves scores is recognition under pressure, so InterviewSkool pairs every topic with a practice set and an AI mock interviewer that asks follow-up questions and pushes when your answer is vague. The tutorials tell you what to know; the mock interviews tell you whether you can say it out loud on a Tuesday afternoon with someone watching. Use both, and start with the track that matches your weakest round rather than the one you enjoy most.
Practice
Read a tutorial, then try it out loud with Alex, our AI interviewer.
Start a mock interview →FAANG interview prep questions
Short, direct answers to the questions candidates ask most before starting a prep plan.
How do I prepare for a FAANG interview?
Prepare in three stages. First learn the patterns for each round: data structures for coding, distributed systems concepts for design, and story frameworks for behavioral. Second practice recognizing those patterns on unfamiliar problems until the match is automatic. Third rehearse out loud under time pressure, because most candidates know more than they can demonstrate in a 45-minute interview. InterviewSkool covers all three stages, with the theory free and the mock interviews available per session.
What topics should I learn for a tech interview?
Cover three areas. For coding: arrays, hash maps, linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, graphs, heaps, tries, plus the core techniques including two pointers, sliding window, binary search, and dynamic programming. For system design: caching, sharding, replication, load balancing, message queues, and rate limiting. For behavioral: the STAR method and the recurring themes of conflict, failure, leadership, and ambiguity. Everything else is detail around those core topics.
How long does it take to prepare for a FAANG interview?
Plan for three to six months of consistent work, and be honest about the difference between studying and practicing. Most people need around 200 to 300 coding problems spread over months, plus repeated rehearsal of a handful of system designs and eight to ten behavioral stories. A few intense weekends will not do it, because interview performance depends on pattern recognition that only builds up through spaced repetition.
Is it worth doing mock interviews before applying?
Yes, and it is the highest-leverage step people skip. A mock interview reveals the gap between what you know and what you can say out loud while being watched, which is usually much larger than expected. It also surfaces the mechanical problems: narrating too quietly, skipping the complexity analysis, or forgetting to clarify requirements in a design round. Practicing once before the real loop is often too late to change much.
Do I need to know a company-specific system to pass?
No. Interviewers assess whether you can apply standard patterns to an unfamiliar problem, not whether you have memorized a company architecture. What company-specific preparation genuinely helps with is knowing what that company weights: Amazon leans heavily on its Leadership Principles in behavioral rounds, Google emphasizes clear algorithmic communication, and senior system design rounds often expect a specific depth of distributed systems depth. Learn the patterns, then read the company rubric.