Is Interview Cake The Key to Programming Interviews?
We explore cost, content, and reviews to lay out all the pros and cons.
“Honestly, this feels like cheating,” one Interview Cake user said.
Interview Cake has made a strong impression on the software engineering community. Does this programming course live up to the hype?
What is Interview Cake?
“The programming interview is a winnable game.”
That’s what Interview Cake (interviewcake.com), an online coding interview prep course, says about landing a programming job. This platform promises to help you win the game of interviewing through its mock questions, tips, and explanations of programming topics.
Despite it's odd name, Interview Cake has a positive reputation in the software engineering community as a technical interview prep tool. Here, we'll explore both the pros and cons of using it.
How do I become a member?
There are three different levels of membership, ranging from $19 for three-week course access to a $4,900 comprehensive membership, with one-on-one coaching included (currently sold out). The course is a popular option for gaining access to potential interview questions asked by top companies, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
The most popular membership is the full course, with 12 months access to all the online resources at a discounted price of $29.
With the full course membership comes 50+ hours of practice questions, interview tips, and readings on all the core data structures (linked lists, queues, trees, etc) and core problem types (system design, dynamic programming, etc).
The website offers a 7-day free email course and promises that each subscription is “risk-free”, meaning that if you don’t land the job you want, or if you feel unsatisfied, you get a full refund.
What are the reviews?
The Positives
One Quora user said Interview Cake covers a good variety of topics with helpful tips and tricks for the technical interview process. He also said the design of the course flows through different topics in a meaningful way and offers useful explanations.
“All in all, I'd recommend Interview Cake the most to candidates who have already ha[d] experience and want to brush up on algorithms,” he said. “If you are someone who's familiar with technical interviews and working your way through a problem, Interview Cake is great because it explains problems and logical[ly] flow[s] well.”
A blogger who goes by ColorfulCode said that she believes the course to be worth it, especially given the option for a full refund if you aren't satisfied.
“The questions are great quality and it’s much needed along with your other interview prep,” she said. “You will learn a lot, especially if you haven’t studied CS formally. Give it a shot. If you don’t like it, just email Parker, the founder, and he’ll refund you your money.”
The Negatives
One Reddit user said that, with the resources available for free on the internet, it isn’t worth spending money on the course. Many others said they would rather pay for Leetcode, which has recent questions asked in technical interviews at big tech companies.
Many other users seemed to agree. According to these reviews, Interview Cake isn’t the best option when other courses offer more potential interview questions and more practice with edge cases.
- Leetcode is a comparable resource, with a premium membership for $35 per month.
- Hackerrank is used by companies themselves, and if you know your company uses it, this may be a better buy.
- Many have also bought AlgoExpert and Grokking the System Design Interview.
One user on Team Blind, an anonymous professional networking website, elaborated on this sentiment:
“The only difference is [L]eetcode has over a thousand questions in the bank and they have more guided solutions than [I]nterview [C]ake. Interview [C]ake is more in depth but it has like... 40 questions?”
Is this the right tool for you?
Similar to most online interview courses, Interview Cake has received both positive and negative reviews as an interview prep tool.
Overall, those who use the service have positive experiences. Proponents rave about the structured approach to covering all topics in the programming interview, from system design and data structures to recursion and hash tables.
Although many of these topics are covered for free online, studying them requires research and the bandwidth to organize your own study plan. Part of Interview Cake's value is that they structure a study plan for you, in an almost bootcamp-like format with a myriad of practice problems.
On the flip side: Expect to pay for additional subscriptions, since most users want company-specific coding questions. If you're applying for Microsoft or Apple, it would sure help to see the exact questions they asked last week.
Between the interview advice and the coverage of many programming topics, Interview Cake seems to be a great course to brush up on skills. With the free 7-day email course, free interview questions available on the website, and the option of a refund if the course isn’t a good fit, Interview Cake seems like a safe platform to try before your next programming interview.
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