Step by Step Guide Diagram for Approaching Any Coding Question
Levan Khunjgurua
June 18, 2025
I want to share with you what framework/guide I have come up with after my interview experience both as an interviewer (100+ coding, sys design and behavior) and as an interviewee.
I created a step by step guide diagram for solving any coding question at FAANG interviews.
This diagram isn’t a come-up of a couple days and interviews. I’ve spent a lot of effort in FAANG tech interviews for years. I’ve tried CP, code-golfing and so many coding websites I lost count, leetcode, hackerrank, codesignal, project euler, interviewbit, topcoder, codeforces, and even more that I forgot to mention here.
I’ve interviewed a lots companies and got humbled and taken those personally. Eventually, still retrospected and still managed to learn from failures. I saw how/where most people fail during interviews. The most common reason candidates fail during interviews, whether it’s a phone screen or onsite coding interview, is that they give up early - without ever asking for help.
Anyway, the happy path of the diagram consists of 7 steps:
- Listen to / read the problem
- Ask clarifying questions
- Find and suggest solutions; Evaluate Big O time & space;
- Code the solution
- Skim through your code
- Dry Run your code; Choose common test cases
- You’re Done