While modern software developent requires a wide range of skills, data structure and algorithm problems are still the most common type of technical interview question.
It can be intimidating to learn these concepts. The problems can feel like brain teasers that rely on complicated algorithms which are near-impossible to derive in a short amount of time.
The good news is, most of these problems can be solved using a small set of common patterns. By practicing these patterns, you can build up your problem-solving skills and improve the speed of implementation, helping you ace your technical interviews.
In the context of this article, we'll refer to these practice problems as "katas". This term is borrowed from martial arts, where a kata is a series of movements that are practiced to improve technique. We will introduce these katas as a ritualized practice to improve your DSA skills that can be performed regularly and before interviews to prime your mind for solving these types of problems.
We will discuss the effectiveness of these katas, how to approach them, and pitfalls of this approach