10 Books and Courses to Prepare Technical Programming/Coding Job Interviews in 2024

If you are preparing for a technical interview in the software development sector and looking for some great books to boost your preparation, then you have come to the right place. In the past, I have hared some of the best online courses to prepare coding interviews. In this article, I am going to share some of the best programming/coding interview books to prepare well for any software development jobs. These books are enough to crack even the toughest of the job interviews at Google, Amazon, or Microsoft. They provide excellent coverage of all essential topics for programming job interviews like data structure and algorithms, system design, algorithm design, computer science fundamentals, SQL, Linux, Java, Networking, etc.

Even if you are not preparing for Google or Facebook but some service-based companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant, Tech Mahindra, etc., or some Investment banks like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanely, or Barclays you will benefit from this list of books.

Though I won't suggest you read them all, obviously 10 is way more than enough, but choose the book depending upon the difficulty level of interviews and your knowledge and experience. If you are good at data structure and algorithms, you can skip some of the books that teach fundamentals and directly jump on solving coding problems.

If you are preparing for startups and big tech giants like Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, then you should prepare hard and well, and there the difficult problems given in classic books like Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skiena seriously help. Still, for more general-purpose interviews, I think the Cracking the Coding Interview book itself is sufficient.

If you need more questions, you can solve problems given in the Coding Interview questions book by Narasimha Karumanchi, the famous data structure and algorithm book author in Python and Java.

And, if you want to combine books with some active learnings, then you can also join some online courses I have shared for coding interviews like Data Structure and Algorithms Analysis - Job Interview on Udemy, one of the best courses to prepare for coding interviews.

10 Books to Prepare Technical Job Interviews in 2024

Here is my collection of some of the best books to prepare for coding/programming job interviews. If you are looking at tech jobs at Investment Banks, Software service companies, Startups, and some of the biggest tech giants like Google and Facebook, then these books will help you to prepare well and perform well in your job interviews.

1. Cracking the Coding Interview

This is the most recommended book for programming/coding job interviews because it contains frequently asked questions from various tech companies. I strongly suggest you go through all the problems, 189 in total given in this book to refresh your knowledge.

It should be the first book you read because, by reading this, you will automatically gain all the experience you need to crack a technical job interview.

The author has worked on famous tech companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft and familiar with the in and out of their job interview process, which makes this book an invaluable resource for all developers preparing for tech jobs. 

If you want to do it even better, I also suggest you join an online course for active learning like the Master the Coding Interview course by Andrei Negaoie on Udemy. This will provide a boost to your preparation.

2. System Design Interview – An insider's guide Volume 1 and 2 by Alex Xu

System design questions are integral part of programming or coding job interviews but at the same time they are also very difficult to answer. For example, in order to answer question like how do you design WhatsApp or How do you design a YouTube requires vast knowledge of software architecture, different components, Computer science fundamentals and how things work in general. 

Most of the people either don't prepare for System design or just prepare randomly without any structure which is a big problem and often cost you an amazing opportunity on top companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook etc. Alex Xu, saw that problem and in aim to solve that problem, written two books System Design Interview – An insider's guide Volume 1 and 2.

In these two books, he talk about key software architecture components like API Gateway, Rate Limiter, Load Balancer, Forward and Reverse Proxy as well as essential system design concepts like horizontal and vertical scaling, Microservices vs Monolith, SQL vs NoSQL and may such design decision and trade-offs. 

If you are preparing for tech interviews, particularly for programmer or software developer role then I highly recommend these books to you.  

He has also created a site called ByteByteGo, where you can find digital version of both the books and more materials on System design preparation. If you like digital content then you can also join that course.  You can also use discount code e JALJAD to get 10% discount.

3. Programming Interview Exposed

This is one of the first books I read on programming job interviews, before that I wasn't even aware that there are books to help you crack technical job interviews.

Like the previous book, this also contains questions from various important topics for coding interviews like a binary tree, linked list, string, SQL, networking, problem-solving, and puzzles.

If you have to buy just one book, then buy the previous one, which is more up-to-date, but if you can afford it, this book will also help you to learn and understand coding problems better.

If you want, you can also combine this book with these best System design courses for coding interviews to prepare for System design better, which is often the most difficult topic to crack on programming job interviews.

4. Algorithm Design Manual

This is just a terrific and fantastic book on Algorithm, it's the best book you can expect to crack some of the toughest programming job interviews in the book like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple's technical jobs.

The book contains questions based on algorithms and data structure, and if you can solve them on your own, you are fully ready for job interviews.

It also includes some solved question which teaches you how you can apply algorithms to solve real-world problems. In short, one of the must-read books to do crack a programming job interview.

By the way, if you struggle to solve coding problems, particularly the new ones which you have never seen before then I highly recommend you join Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions course on Educative.

It's a great course to essential coding patterns like two pointer approach, fast and slow pointer, merge intervals, sliding window, etc, which can help you to solve 100+ coding problems in real interviews.

And, if you like this course, I suggest you opt for Educative Subscription because Educative has a lot of interactive, text-based course to prepare for key coding interview topics like algorithms, data structure, dynamic programming, object-oriented programming, multithreading, database, etc. and it just costs $18 per month (50% discount now).

5. Elements of Programming Interviews

This is another essential book for preparing programming job interviews. It is one of the rare complete books which covers coding, data structure, algorithms, and problem-solving.

This book will provide excellent material for preparation if you are preparing for startup jobs and jobs on reputed software companies like Thought Works, Amazon, and Twitter.

6. Programming Pearl

This is one of the oldest books to prepare for a technical job interview, but as they say, "Old is Gold," this book is truly remarkable in teaching you the fundamentals of computer science and programming. Some of the classic questions from this book, like sorting 1 million integers with very little RAM, are still popular.

This book is not a replacement for any excellent algorithm book like Introduction to Algorithms or Algorithms 4th Edition, but it complements them. It is also an exciting book to read, so you won't fall asleep while reading this on your commute to the office.

7. Java Programming Interview Exposed

This is the must-read of the book if you are preparing for a Java programming job interview. Since Java interviews not only focus on coding and programming but also on Java fundamentals, knowledge of Java APIs like JDBC, Java Collection Framework, JVM Internals, and popular frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, JUnit, etc.

This book helps you to prepare for all those apart from standard coding and data structure and algorithm questions. The book is suitable for both junior and senior-level Java developer job interviews.

8. Coding Interview Questions

This is the book from one of my favorite authors Narasimha Karumanchi, which is also the author of one of the best data structure and algorithm books for Java programmers, The Data Structure and Algorithm Made Easy.

You will find a lot of frequently asked Coding questions from Tech job interviews in this book. The author has also done a great job of explaining the solution, their time and space complexity, and how you can improve your solutions by applying tried and tested techniques.

9. Dynamic Programming for Coding Interviews

This is another excellent book to prepare for programming job interviews. This book solely focuses on Dynamic programming techniques for problem-solving. The authors of the book Meenakshi and Kamal Rawat have done an excellent job of explaining how you can use dynamic programming and recursion to solve a problem like how do you compute the 80th term of a Fibonacci series.

The book is also fun to read.  Btw, if Dynamic programming is your weak link, then you can also check out these best dynamic programming courses on Udemy to brush up on your dynamic programming skill.

10. Algorithms for Interviews

This is another excellent book for a technical job interview, which will teach you about standard algorithms and how to use those algorithms to solve a particular problem. They give you step-by-step guidance on applying a known algorithm to solve unknown problems.

This book is particularly useful for candidates preparing job on big tech giants which focus on innovation like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, ThoughtWorks, Intel, etc.

11. SQL Puzzles by Joe Celkos

The SQL queries are an integral part of programming job interviews, and this book has some of the best SQL query challenges you will ever see. Once you have gone through the puzzles given in this book, you should be comfortable dealing with any kind of SQL queries on interviews like join based, aggregation, functions, and correlated subqueries.

12. Grokking the SQL Interview

If you are looking for a book where you can find frequently asked SQL questions and database questions then "Grokking the SQL Interview" is the book you should read. 

In this book, you will not only find conceptual questions like "difference between union and union all" or "different  between clustered and non-clustered index" or "primary key vs unique key" but also popular SQL query questions like how to find 2nd highest salary or how to find Nth highest salary. 

The book also covers all essential SQL topics like

• Joins
• Indexes
• Stored procedures
• Query optimization
• Grouping and Aggregation
• Window functions
• Ranking functions like row_number, rank, and dense_rank etc

Overall this is a nice book for you to revise key SQL concepts before interviews. You can also use this eBook  to learn essential SQL concepts. You can get this book on Gumroad. You can also use discount code "friends20" to get 20% discount. 

13. Algomonster

This is not a book but a very useful resource to prepare for a coding interview that I come across recently.  This website is specially created to prepare and get succeed in FAANG interviews. It doesn't teach you how to solve a particular coding problem but how to find the underlying pattern which can then be used to solve many more coding problems. 

Apart from reading one of these books, you can also join Algomoster to get a boost to your coding interview preparation.  You will learn the most important patterns and get results in the shortest amount of time possible.

It contains more than 48 Patterns, meticulously Curated by Google Engineers, and more than 325 Lessons and Problems, 678 Illustrations along with Object-Oriented Design and System Design questions to make yourself completely ready for your next coding interview. 

You can subscribe to Algomonster now for just $99 (69% discount) and give your interview preparation a new edge.  Here is also a nice diagram from Algomoster which tells what patterns you should learn for your coding interview. 

That's all about some of the best books to prepare for technical interviews for programming jobs. The list includes books that will teach you all essential topics for interview, like data structure and algorithms, system design, algorithm design, SQL, dynamic programming, programming language like Java, as well as the soft skill required to crack a programming job interview.

The first two books in this list are a must-read for any level of programmer like both fresher's and experienced because they will refresh all essential topics for software development jobs.


Other Useful Resources for Coding Job Interviews

• 10 Data Structure and Algorithms Courses to Crack Coding Interviews (courses)
• 5 websites to prepare for Data Structure and Algorithm Questions (see)
• Top 20 String Algorithm Interview Questions (list)
• Top 30 Array Interview Questions for Programmers (list)
• Top 20 Amazon and Google Programming Questions (list)
• Top 10 SQL queries from Interviews (queries)
• 7 Best Courses to learn Data Structure and Algorithms (courses)
• Top 50 Programming Phone Interview questions (list)
• 20+ Binary tree Coding Problems from Interviews (questions)
• 25 Software Design Questions from Coding Interviews (questions)
• 133 Core Java Interview Questions from the last 5 years (list)
• 50+ Data Structure and Algorithms Interview question (list)
• Top 10 Data Structure and Algorithms Books for Programmers (books)
• 10 Programming and SQL Courses for Interviews (courses)
• Top 5 Courses to Learn Data Structure in-depth (courses)

Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these book recommendations, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or suggestions or any book you want to see on this list, then please drop a note.

P. S. - If you are looking for some Free Algorithms courses to improve your understanding of Data Structure and Algorithms, then you should also check these best data structures and algorithms courses on Udemy. It's created by a Google Software Engineer and Algorithm expert, and it's completely free of cost.