Actual Coding Interview Process and How It's Different From Doing LeetCode

Coding interviews can feel daunting, especially for those who haven't done one before. You may have spent countless hours practicing on LeetCode, but the actual interview process often looks quite different. Let's break down how modern coding interviews work, what types of questions you can expect, and how interviewers typically grade you.

The Evolution of Interviews

Before COVID, interviews were often held in person (sometimes called "on-site" or "whiteboard" interviews). Companies would fly candidates in to spend a full day—sometimes more—meeting with potential teammates and managers. These days, it's a different story. Nearly all coding interviews have moved online because it's more cost-effective.

Typical Interview Outline

You'll usually meet with a senior engineer or higher-level developer from the company. They're responsible for evaluating your coding skills, communication abilities, and overall problem-solving approach.

Introduction (5 minutes)

Your interviewer will often kick things off with casual questions about your background. This is your chance to briefly talk about relevant projects, work experience, and what interests you about the company.

Coding Session

After a short chat, you'll be given a link to a coding environment. Some companies use dedicated platforms like HackerRank or CoderPad; others might opt for a simple shared document (like Google Docs) to simulate a whiteboard experience.

Wrap-Up and Questions

If time permits, you might get a few minutes to ask questions about the role, the team, or the company. Use this opportunity to learn more about what they're looking for and if it aligns with your career goals.

What Questions Will You Be Asked?

Larger tech companies often use LeetCode-style questions. Usually, the problems tagged on LeetCode for each company are pretty accurate. We recommend first learning all the patterns and being able to write bug-free code and then working through the top company-tagged problems.

Smaller or mid-sized companies might not have a huge pool of proprietary questions. They commonly rely on the popular "Blind 75" list (or similar collections of essential coding interview problems), so doing all of those will cover you in the majority of cases; and even if not, most other questions are derivatives of these questions, so you'll probably still be able to figure them out.

If you have an interview coming up, check out our company-specific interview guide for the latest questions and tips.

Interview Process

Here is the process for which you should solve these problems:

Read the question and understand it - ask your interviewer thoughtful questions. Some information is usually left out intentionally to see if candidates are actually thinking.
Mention things like edge cases to watch for, important constraints, etc.
Verbally state all ideas for how to solve it - your interviewer wants to know that you can come up with multiple ideas.
Think out loud - your interviewer can't help or judge you if they can't tell what you're thinking.
Pick the best idea and justify why you chose it - this is usually based on time and space complexity, but whatever the reason is, you need to say why you think it's the best choice.
Your interviewer will either say "yeah this is a good idea, get started coding it" or say "hmm maybe not" and give you a hint about different approaches
Start coding your chosen solution, and most importantly, talk as you code.
Don't worry if you forget small syntax things, the interviewers will help you out and sometimes even let you use the internet - what's important is that your approach is correct.
At the end, run some test cases - if you're on a platform that can run code, write your tests out; if you're on a simple text editor, manually do a trace through your code.

Here's a mock interview that shows how it works and what to look out for:

Actual Interview ≠ LeetCode

As seen in the video, there are quite a few differences between practicing on LeetCode and doing an actual interview. Here are the most important ones:

You are not provided test cases, you need to provide the test cases yourself; however, don't worry about catching the extreme edge cases that LeetCode sometimes has, interviewers don't ask about these.
You often won't be running the code, so it doesn't matter if you "beat X% of users" like on LeetCode; but you need to walk through test cases manually when you're done.
Communication is very important, your interviewer needs to know your thought process so they can see how you work through problems.
Document your code, as this gets saved and reviewed with the interview committee.

If you're practicing on LeetCode, the main takeaway is to focus on getting the correct approach and demonstrating your problem solving skills.

How You're Graded

Most companies give their interviewers a rubric to grade candidates on. While rubrics can vary from company to company, they often include:

Understanding of Data Structures and Algorithms

Do you know how to apply the right tools to solve the problem? Are your time and space complexities reasonable?

Autonomy

Can you work through problems on your own, or do you need constant hints? A candidate who can find logical next steps independently tends to score higher.

Communication

Are you articulating your ideas clearly? Good communication is essential in a collaborative environment.

Code Organization

Is your solution clean, readable, and well-structured? Interviewers often check if your code can be easily understood and maintained.

Interview Tips

Practice Thinking Out Loud

In an actual interview, your thought process is just as important as your final answer.
When solving problems, verbalize your approach, trade-offs, and reasoning behind your decisions.
If you get stuck, communicate your debugging strategy—interviewers want to see how you approach problems, not just whether you get the correct answer.

Use a Step-by-Step Problem-Solving Framework

Understand the problem: Clarify any ambiguities and ask about constraints.
Identify edge cases: Interviewers appreciate candidates who consider real-world cases.
Discuss multiple approaches: Show that you can think critically about different solutions.
Choose the best approach: Justify your decision with time and space complexity.
Write clean code: Keep it structured and readable.
Run test cases manually: Validate your solution with sample inputs, as you may not get an automatic test suite.

Stay Calm Under Pressure

If you’re stuck, take a deep breath and walk through the problem step by step.
Use a structured approach: break the problem into smaller subproblems.
If you truly don’t know, discuss how you would attempt to solve it—showing logical problem-solving can still earn points.

Master Problem-Solving Patterns

Many coding problems follow common patterns (e.g., sliding window, two pointers, dynamic programming).
Instead of memorizing solutions, recognize these patterns to adapt to new problems.
AlgoMonster is built around this approach to make learning patterns more intuitive.

Write Bug-Free Code from the Start

In an interview, debugging can eat up precious time.
Use structured templates to reduce errors and increase efficiency.
Our templates help you write clean, correct code with minimal rework.

Simulate Real Interview Conditions

Practice coding in Google Docs, a plain text editor, or an environment without autocomplete.
Do mock interviews with a partner or on a platform like AlgoMonster.
Time yourself—most coding interviews are around 30–45 minutes.

Speedrun Problems to Build Pattern Recognition

Instead of solving one problem in 30 minutes, use a multiple-choice format to recognize solutions faster.
The more problems you see, the faster you’ll recognize patterns during the interview.
Our Speedrun Mode lets you quickly analyze problems without writing full code.

Conclusion

Again, check out the mock interview above to see how it works if you haven't already.

Now that you have a good idea of how the interview process works and the importance of patterns, let's talk about how you can make your study the most effective. This includes how to use AlgoMonster, how to use other resources, and how to make the most out of your study time and the psychological aspect of it.