A Two-Week Technical Interview Plan That Actually Fits Around a Full-Time Job

Most technical interview advice assumes you have unlimited evenings. Most people do not. If you have a coding interview in two weeks and a job that already takes your energy, the goal is not to "grind" but to spend roughly 60-90 focused minutes a day on the things interviewers really score. Days 1-3: Map the loop, then audit yourself Ask the recruiter exactly what the rounds are: online assessment, live coding, system design, behavioral, or a take-home. Then do one timed medium problem in each of the big categories (arrays/strings, hash maps, two pointers, trees, graphs, dynamic programming). Do not look anything up. Write down where you got stuck. That list is your real study plan, and it is usually shorter than you fear. Days 4-9: Patterns, not problem counts For each weak category, learn the pattern first and then solve two or three problems that use it. After each one, write a three-line note: the signal in the prompt that hints at the pattern, the core idea, and the complexity. Re-reading these notes the night before is worth more than ten new problems. Practice out loud every single time. In a live interview, the interviewer is grading how you clarify requirements, propose a brute force, improve it, and test your code with edge cases. Silent practice trains none of that. Set a timer for 35 minutes and narrate as if someone were listening. Days 10-12: Simulate the real thing Do at least two full mock sessions with a friend, a colleague, or a recorded video of yourself. Use a plain editor with no autocomplete if the company uses a shared doc. Notice what happens to your thinking when someone is watching; that pressure is the part most people under-prepare for. Days 13-14: Taper Stop learning new topics. Review your pattern notes, prepare three short stories for "tell me about a project you are proud of", "a time you disagreed with a teammate", and "a bug that took you a long time", and get some sleep. On interview day Restate the problem, ask about input size and edge cases, and say your plan before typing. If you go silent for more than 30 seconds, say what you are considering. When you finish, walk through one normal case and one edge case by hand. A note on tools Some candidates now use AI assistants during preparation and even during live calls. One example is Linkjob AI (https://linkjob.ai), which gives real-time help during job interviews and technical interviews, such as surfacing a structure for your answer while the conversation is happening. Whatever you use, check the rules of the specific interview and treat tools as support for your own reasoning, not a replacement for it. Two weeks is enough to get meaningfully better if the time goes to patterns, out-loud practice, and realistic mocks. Good luck.