// the find
jwasham/coding-interview-university
A complete computer science study plan to become a software engineer.
A giant, checklist-style study plan (not code) for grinding CS fundamentals and interview prep — arrays through B-trees through system design, with links to videos, books, and problem sites. Aimed at self-taught devs without a CS degree trying to pass big-company technical interviews.
- The scope is genuinely exhaustive and well-sequenced: it goes from Big-O through data structures, graphs, DP, OS/networking basics, up to optional deep cuts like van Emde Boas trees and Bloom filters, in an order that roughly matches how a CS curriculum builds on itself.
- Uses GitHub's native task-list checkboxes, so forking and checking off items actually gives you a persistent, visual progress tracker for free — no separate app needed.
- The author is upfront about scope creep: explicit 'don't make my mistakes' section telling you not to over-invest in flashcards/trivia, and a clear 'what you won't see covered' list (no JS/HTML/CSS/SQL) so you're not surprised.
- It's a link aggregator, not a maintained body of knowledge — most 'content' is outbound links to Coursera/EdX videos and YouTube, several of which are years old and prone to rotting or landing behind a paywall.
- Zero code in the repo itself; despite being pitched at people who want to 'implement a vector' or 'implement a hash table,' there's no reference implementation or test harness here, you're on your own for correctness checks.
- No opinionated depth on any single topic — it's a table of contents to other people's material, so the actual teaching quality is wildly inconsistent between links (some are excellent university lectures, others are shallow YouTube explainers).
- The interview-prep framing is now somewhat dated: heavy whiteboard-coding emphasis and CTCI-era book recommendations don't reflect how a lot of companies (take-homes, pair programming, no-whiteboard policies) actually interview in 2026.