Knowledge doesn’t pass interviews; fluency does. Parts 0–12 taught you the material and showed you 36 worked designs. This part turns that knowledge into a performance skill through deliberate practice — drills, self-grading, buildable projects, and a problem bank to test yourself with.
Time for this part: ongoing, from Week 1 onward — practice runs in parallel with reading, not after it. The single most important idea in this whole repo: attempt problems cold before reading the answer.
The unifying idea: recognition is not recall, and recall is not performance. You close those gaps by doing the thing — designing cold, out loud, timed — and getting feedback, over and over.
| # | Chapter | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | How to Practice ⭐ | The practice loop, active recall, a concrete study plan |
| 2 | Estimation Drills | 10 worked back-of-envelope exercises until math is instant |
| 3 | Component Drills | “When/why would you use X?” flashcards for every building block |
| 4 | Trade-off Drills | Articulate any trade-off both ways, fluently |
| 5 | Self-Grading Checklist | A rubric to score your own mocks like an interviewer |
| 6 | Build-It Projects | A ladder of buildable projects — learn by doing |
Plus: the Problems Bank — fully-worked novel problems + a large prompt list to attempt cold.
flowchart LR
Drill[Sub-skill drills<br/>estimation, components, trade-offs] --> Mock[Full mocks<br/>cold, timed, out loud]
Mock --> Grade[Self-grade<br/>against the rubric]
Grade --> Gap[Study the gap]
Gap --> Drill
Build[Build-it projects] -.deepens intuition.-> Mock
Next: Part 14 — Company Guides — tailor your preparation to the specific companies you’re targeting, from local shops to MENA/SEA scale-ups to Big Tech.