System Design Interview Prep:
A Beginner's Roadmap

Weekly Roadmap

Week 1: Foundations and Basic Data Structures

Day 1: Introduction to DSA and Time Complexity

• Learn the significance of DSA in problem-solving.
• Learn about time and space complexity.
• Learn about Big O, Big Theta, and Big Omega notations.

Day 2-3: Arrays

• Learn arrays and their types.
• Practice the basic operations: traversal, insertion, deletion.
• Practice problems on platforms such as LeetCode or GeeksforGeeks.

Day 4-5: Linked Lists

• Learn singly and doubly linked lists.
• Implement basic operations: insertion, deletion, traversal.
• Practice related problems.

Day 6: Stacks

• Learn stack operations: push, pop, peek.
• Implement stacks as arrays and linked lists.
• Solve problems that involve stack usage.

Day 7: Queues

• Study queues and their types: simple, circular, priority.
• Implement queue operations: enqueue, dequeue.
• Practice problems on queue operations.

Week 2: Advanced Data Structures

Day 8-9: Hashing

• Study hash functions and hash tables.
• Implement basic operations: insertion, deletion, search.
• Solve problems that involve hashing techniques.

Day 10-11: Trees

• Study binary trees, binary search trees (BST).
• Implement tree traversal methods: inorder, preorder, postorder.
• Solve problems that are related to tree operations.

Day 12-13: Heaps

• Read about heaps and their categories: min-heap, max-heap.
• Implement heap operations: insertion, deletion.
• Practice problems of heap applications.

Day 14: Graphs

• Know graph representations: adjacency matrix, adjacency list.
• Read graph traversal algorithms: BFS, DFS.
• Practice problems of graph traversal.

Week 3: Algorithms and Problem-Solving Techniques

Day 15-16: Sorting Algorithms

• Read different sorting algorithms: bubble sort, merge sort, quicksort.
• Know their time complexities.
• Implement and compare sorting algorithms.

Day 17-18: Searching Algorithms

• Read about binary search and linear search.
• Implement searching algorithms.
• Find problems related to searching techniques.

Day 19-20: Backtracking

• Learn the backtracking technique.
• Practice problems like N-Queens, Sudoku Solver.
• Practice problems to solidify the concept.

Day 21: Divide and Conquer

• Learn divide and conquer approach.
• Practice problems like merge sort, quicksort.
• Implement divide and conquer algorithms.

Week 4: Advanced Topics and Mock Interviews

Day 22-23: Dynamic Programming

• Learn the dynamic programming concept.
• Study problems such as Fibonacci series, knapsack problem.
• Implement dynamic programming solutions.

Day 24-25: Greedy Algorithms

• Study greedy algorithms.
• Practice problems like activity selection, coin change problem.
• Practice greedy algorithm problems.

Day 26-27: Bit Manipulation

• Practice bitwise operations.
• Practice problems using bit manipulation methods.

Day 28-29: Sliding Window and Two Pointers

• Learn about sliding window technique.
• Learn about two pointers technique.
• Practice problems using these methods.

Day 30: Mock Interviews and Problem Solving

• Practice mock interviews to get a feel of actual interview environment.
• Practice problems of various types to check your skills.
• Review your performance and work on improving.