DSA Mediums + OS Concurrency + Communication Excellence

🌟 WEEK 1 - Build Foundation + Speed + Communication

Day 1 - Baseline + Setup

• [ ] Tasks:
  • [x] Solve: Two Sum, LC 121, Valid Parentheses
  • [x] Time your solutions
  • [x] Make a "thinking aloud" template
• [ ] Concepts:
  • [x] Time/space complexity
  • [x] How interviewers evaluate you

Day 2 - Arrays & Strings (Core Filtering Topics)

• [ ] Problems (LeetCode Medium-ish):
  • [ ] LC 3 (Longest Substring)
  • [ ] LC 53
  • [ ] LC 56
• [ ] Concepts:
  • [ ] Sliding window patterns
  • [ ] Communicating constraints clearly
• [ ] Communication Drill:
  • [ ] Explain LC 3 in under 90 seconds

Day 3 - Sliding Window Mastery

• [ ] Problems:
  • [ ] LC 76
  • [ ] LC 567
  • [ ] LC 424
• [ ] Concepts:
  • [ ] Expand-shrink window
  • [ ] Hash maps
• [ ] Drill:
  • [ ] Record yourself explaining your approach

Day 4 - Two Pointers + Prefix Sums

• [ ] Problems:
  • [ ] LC 15 (3Sum)
  • [ ] LC 167
  • [ ] LC 560
• [ ] Concepts:
  • [ ] Two-pointer reasoning
  • [ ] Prefix-sum logic
• [ ] Communication Drill:
  • [ ] Explain 3Sum like you're teaching a junior

Day 5 - Monotonic Stack + Interview Code Cleanliness

• [ ] Problems:
  • [ ] LC 739
  • [ ] LC 42
  • [ ] LC 155
• [ ] Concepts:
  • [ ] Monotonic stack
  • [ ] Clean vs clever code
• [ ] OA Simulation:
  • [ ] 60-minute coding test (2 mediums)

Day 6 - Trees Basics

• [ ] Problems:
  • [ ] LC 102
  • [ ] LC 226
  • [ ] LC 104
• [ ] Concepts:
  • [ ] BFS vs DFS
  • [ ] Recursion templates
• [ ] Drill:
  • [ ] Explain BFS traversal to a non-CS person

Day 7 - Graph Fundamentals

• [ ] Problems:
  • [ ] LC 200
  • [ ] LC 133
  • [ ] LC 695
• [ ] Concepts:
  • [ ] BFS/DFS
  • [ ] Visited sets
• [ ] Assessment:
  • [ ] Mini OA with 2 mediums

🌟 WEEK 2 - Advanced DSA + OS + Concurrency (Pure's unique focus)

Day 8 - Advanced Trees

• [ ] Problems:
  • [ ] LC 236 (LCA)
  • [ ] LC 114
  • [ ] LC 105
• [ ] Concept:
• [ ] Drill:

Day 9 - Graphs Advanced

• [ ] Problems:
• [ ] Concept:
• [ ] Communication Focus:

Day 10 - ⚠ PURE-FOCUSED OS Concurrency Day

• [ ] Topics:
• [ ] Drill:

Day 11 - OS Internals (Asked often in Pure)

• [ ] Topics:
• [ ] Hands-on:

Day 12 - Backtracking + Binary Search

• [ ] Problems:
• [ ] Concept:
• [ ] Drill:

Day 13 - Debugging Day (Pure values this highly)

• [ ] Tasks:

✔️ What This New Plan Optimizes For (Based on Reddit & Engineer Insights)

🔥 1. Heavy DSA weight (LC Medium focus)

Pure Storage heavily emphasizes medium-level LeetCode problems. This plan focuses on the most commonly asked patterns.

🔥 2. OS + Concurrency - Pure's unique requirement

Unlike most tech companies, Pure Storage deeply evaluates operating systems knowledge, especially concurrency concepts like mutexes, semaphores, deadlocks, and threading.

🔥 3. Communication & Thinking Aloud (evaluated explicitly)

Pure Storage explicitly evaluates how you communicate your thought process. Every few days includes communication drills to build this skill.

🔥 4. Clean Coding > Fancy Coding (as Pure engineers said)

The plan emphasizes writing clean, readable code over clever one-liners. Pure values maintainability and clarity.

🔥 5. Debugging & Reasoning (rare in other companies but important here)

Pure Storage includes debugging questions in their assessments. Day 13 is dedicated to this, and multiple days include debugging practice.

🔥 6. Interview stamina through mocks & OA simulations

Multiple timed assessments and mock interviews throughout the plan build stamina and reduce interview anxiety.

This plan matches exactly what Pure Storage screens for. Good luck with your preparation! 🚀

UHV CAT 1 Answer Key.pdf

UHV CAT 1 Answer Key.pdf