DSA Interview Roadmap

12-week structured study plan for coding interviews

Time Commitment

This roadmap assumes 2-3 hours of study per day. Adjust based on your schedule. Consistency beats intensity - regular practice is key.

Phase 1: Foundation (Weeks 1-3)

1

Week 1: Arrays and Strings

15-20 hours
  • Array Basics
    Two Sum, Best Time to Buy Stock, Contains Duplicate
  • Two Pointers
    Valid Palindrome, 3Sum, Container With Most Water
  • String Manipulation
    Valid Anagram, Longest Common Prefix, String to Integer
2

Week 2: Hash Maps and Sliding Window

15-20 hours
  • Hash Map Patterns
    Group Anagrams, Top K Frequent Elements, Valid Sudoku
  • Sliding Window
    Longest Substring Without Repeating, Maximum Average Subarray, Permutation in String
3

Week 3: Linked Lists and Stacks

15-20 hours
  • Linked List Basics
    Reverse Linked List, Merge Two Lists, Remove Nth Node
  • Fast and Slow Pointers
    Linked List Cycle, Find Middle, Palindrome Linked List
  • Stack Problems
    Valid Parentheses, Min Stack, Daily Temperatures

Phase 2: Intermediate (Weeks 4-6)

4

Week 4: Binary Search

15-20 hours
  • Binary Search Basics
    Binary Search, First Bad Version, Search Insert Position
  • Advanced Binary Search
    Search in Rotated Array, Find Peak Element, Koko Eating Bananas
5

Week 5: Trees

15-20 hours
  • Tree Traversals
    Inorder, Preorder, Postorder, Level Order
  • Tree Properties
    Max Depth, Same Tree, Symmetric Tree, Subtree of Another
  • BST Operations
    Validate BST, Kth Smallest, LCA in BST
6

Week 6: Heaps and Priority Queues

15-20 hours
  • Heap Basics
    Kth Largest Element, Last Stone Weight, K Closest Points
  • Advanced Heap
    Merge K Sorted Lists, Find Median from Stream, Task Scheduler

Phase 3: Advanced (Weeks 7-10)

7

Week 7: Graphs - BFS/DFS

20 hours
  • Graph Traversal
    Number of Islands, Clone Graph, Pacific Atlantic Water Flow
  • Topological Sort
    Course Schedule I & II, Alien Dictionary
8

Week 8: Graphs - Advanced

20 hours
  • Union Find
    Number of Provinces, Redundant Connection, Accounts Merge
  • Shortest Path
    Network Delay Time, Cheapest Flights Within K Stops
9

Week 9: Dynamic Programming - Basics

20 hours
  • 1D DP
    Climbing Stairs, House Robber, Decode Ways
  • Knapsack Pattern
    Coin Change, Partition Equal Subset Sum, Target Sum
10

Week 10: DP - Advanced

20 hours
  • 2D DP
    Unique Paths, LCS, Edit Distance, Longest Palindromic Substring
  • Interval DP
    Burst Balloons, Matrix Chain Multiplication

Phase 4: Practice & Review (Weeks 11-12)

11

Week 11: Backtracking & Mixed Practice

20 hours
  • Backtracking
    Subsets, Permutations, Combination Sum, N-Queens
  • Mixed Problems
    Blind 75 review, weak area focus
12

Week 12: Mock Interviews

20 hours
  • Timed Practice
    Solve 2 medium problems in 45 minutes
  • System Design Basics
    URL Shortener, Rate Limiter concepts
  • Behavioral Prep
    STAR method, project stories

Interview Day Checklist

Clarify problem constraints and edge cases
Discuss approach before coding
Think out loud while solving
Write clean, readable code
Test with examples manually
Analyze time and space complexity
Discuss optimizations if time permits

Resources

LeetCode

Primary practice platform. Focus on Blind 75 and NeetCode 150 lists.

NeetCode.io

Free video explanations for common problems with roadmap.

Grokking Patterns

Learn patterns to recognize similar problems quickly.

Pramp

Free peer mock interviews to practice communication.

Key Tips

  • Quality over quantity - understand each problem deeply
  • Review solved problems after a few days
  • Focus on patterns, not memorizing solutions
  • Practice explaining your approach out loud
  • Time yourself to simulate interview pressure