The Complete Guide to Cracking Good Product Companies

Getting into a Top Product Company like Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google.. is a dream for many of us.

Working at a Good product company has a lot of advantages:

1. Competitive salary & compensation
2. Sharp Learning curve
3. Peer support from some of the talented engineers in the industry
4. Good work culture, Food & Fun events

However, getting an offer from these companies is not easy. They have a set interview process requiring you to upskill various skillset. Getting an interview call from these companies is also a challenge for many.

So, in this blog today, we will help you give complete clarity around every aspect of cracking your dream tech offer.

Here are the topics we will cover today:

1. Is it hard to get into product companies?
2. Right skillset required
3. How consistency & mentorship can help
4. Bosscoder Platform & How we help

So, let's start.

Is it hard to get into Top Product Companies?

What are your thoughts? Do you find this shift hard?

Thanks to the availability of quality resources & guidance, It is very easy to get into Top Product Companies.

Let me share you few examples as well.

These are some career shift stories from Bosscoder. There are many other similar stories happening every day at Bosscoder & outside Bosscoder.

Now, I don’t want to say it was easy for them. However, it is easy to follow their path to achieve a similar result.

However, to do so, you first have to overcome some challenges that every learner faces while preparing:

1. Lack of Consistency: It is important you solve 2 problems every day
2. Structure of Learning: Solving random problems each day will take much more time for you to prepare than following a structured path
3. Getting Blocked frequently: If you are getting blocked while solving problems & don't have a support system to help you out, your doubts will not get clarified.
4. Not having a healthy competitive environment: A healthy peer community can push you to do more and can help you become consistent.

Most of the learners that join Bosscoder face 1 or multiple of the above challenges. Our goal is to help our learners overcome these challenges.

Right skillset Required to get into Top Product Companies:

This is what the hiring process at Microsoft looks like:

(P.S. Most of the top product companies follow the same process)

Round 1: Online Coding Round

• Consists of 3 coding questions (based on Problem-solving in DS & Algo)
• Time: 1 hr 30 mins

Round 2: Interview #1 (Coding Round)

• Time: 45 mins to 1 hr
• 1 or 2 coding questions (based on Problem-solving in DS & Algo)

Round 3: Interview #2 (Coding Round)

• Time: 45 mins to 1 hr
• 1 or 2 coding questions (based on Problem-solving in DS & Algo)

Round 4: Interview #3 (Machine Coding Round - Low-Level Design)

• Time: 1 hr
• 1 machine coding problem (focuses on writing clean maintainable code & logic building)

Round 5: Interview #4 (Design Round)

• Time: 1 hr
• Solve Architecture scaling problem (focuses on High-Level Design)

Round 6: Interview #5 (Managerial Round)

• Time: 45 mins
• Usually taken by the manager or the group manager of the hiring team
• Usual discussion is around your past work, culture
• Can ask for coding or high-level problem (mostly practical applications)

If you closely see the hiring process of Micorosft and other companies, you will find the following skillset required to get into these companies:

1. Problem-solving in Data structures & Algorithms
2. Low-Level Design
3. DB Design Schema
4. High-Level Design
5. Development skills
6. Adhoc: CS fundamentals, Puzzles

Each of these topics is vast in itself and mastering them comes with its own challenges.

However, once you become confident in all the above skillsets, you will definitely get into one of the top product-based companies. (There is no question in this.)

How will you learn these skill sets?

With structured preparation, consistency, a support system & mentorship, your journey towards mastering the above skillset will become easier.

Bosscoder Platform & How we help?

We take great pride & are confident that we have the best platform for ambitious learners who want to shift to a top product company at the most reasonable price.

When you enroll in Bosscoder, you have access to:

• Live interactive classes from tech professionals working in top product-based companies like Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.
• 1:1 mentorship from tech leaders to help you always stay on the right track.
• Regular Mock Interviews to help you realize your mistakes and make corrections to make your interview ready
• Weekly competitive contests to make you solve problems faster in a limited time frame.
• An advanced Placement support team to give you opportunities at top product-based companies to finally realize your dream of getting into one of these.
• Community makes you more consistent and gives you a feeling of belonging to a family and friends.
• Teaching Assistant (TA) Support 24/7 to help you resolve your doubts quickly.

Our structured curriculum has helped 400+ engineers shift into top product companies.

Here is the curriculum deep-dive:

Month 1: Gaining Command over any one programming language (Optional - Only for Beginners)

Since everything that you’ll learn, from DSA to project development will have to be executed in any particular language, it becomes imperative that you master any one language out of these - C++, Java, Python

You will learn:

1. Hello World program, Variables, Input & Output
2. Conditional statement – if-else, switch statements
3. Loops – for loop, while loop, do while loop, solve some pattern problems
4. Time complexity & functions
5. Basics of classes and objects

Month 2: Problem-solving in DS & Algo - Module I

DSA is an important topic in every technical interview by MAANG companies, you must spend the first month learning about the basics of it.

You will learn:

1. Basics of Algorithms + Time Complexities
2. Arrays, Two Pointers, and Sliding Windows
3. Strings
4. Sorting Algorithms

Month 3: Problem-solving in DSA - Module II

Now that you know basic data structures, you can refine your skills further by learning these topics in the second month

You will learn:

1. Recursion
2. Hashing
3. Bit Manipulation
4. Maths Concepts for Coding (Permutations and Combinations, GCD, Modulo Arithmetic, Matrices, etc)

Month 4: Problem-solving in DSA - Module III

Advanced-Data Structures such as stacks, queues, and linked lists are popular choices for technical rounds. You can spend the third month mastering these data structures:

1. Stacks
2. Queues
3. Linked Lists
4. Trees and Tries
5. Heaps

Month 5: Problem-solving in DSA - Module IV

Almost done with DSA! This month, look for the standard algorithms & approaches to solving programming problems.

1. Greedy Algorithms
2. Dynamic Programming
3. Graphs

Month 6: Computer Science Fundamentals

DSA - Done & dusted! Now you are capable of tackling CS Fundamental topics methodically for technical interviews

1. Operating Systems
2. Computer Networks
3. Database Management Systems
4. Object Oriented Programming

Month 7: System Design

System Design questions are always relevant in MAANG interviews, so  make sure to cover them rigorously this month

1. Design Patterns and Schema, UML Diagrams
2. Machine Coding
3. Architecture Design
4. Distributed Systems
5. Load Balancing, Consistent Hashing, Caching
6. Building Real-Life Systems

Month 8: Projects and Wrapping Up!

Now that you will be well versed in all the technical concepts, start building Full Stack projects to display deep & thorough knowledge.

A sample breakdown of this month to learn how to build a project can be:

1. Building Servers and MVC Architecture
2. Web-based Architecture
3. Node.js, MongoDB, React

Here are some of the success stories of our alumni:

In case you want to know more about how Bosscoder can help you in your career, feel free to register for a callback at: https://www.bosscoderacademy.com/

Conclusion:

Getting into Top Product Companies is easy if you are following a structured learning path consistently.

However, you should overcome challenges like:

1. Lack of consistency
2. Un-structure preparation
3. Getting Blocked more frequently
4. Not having a healthy competitive peer community

Once you overcome these challenges, you should learn the right skillset which includes Problem-solving in DS & Algorithms, System Design, CS fundamentals & Development.

Here, programs like Bosscoder Academy can help you a lot providing you with a structured curriculum with live classes, mentorship, mock interviews, doubt support & placement opportunities.

I hope you find this blog useful. Do share this with someone who can also benefit from this.