A prep system for busy engineers who need to remember who they are.
Most interview prep is about what you know: DSA, system design, leetcode. There are a thousand resources for that. This one is about who you are: your story, your decisions, your impact. The part that goes stale the fastest when you're heads-down at work.
By the time a recruiter pings, you've forgotten half of it. This repo is the antidote.
- Mid-career engineers heads-down at work who get pinged out of nowhere
- Anyone who's been saying "I should update my resume" for three weeks running
- People who want a system, not a one-off cram session
Fork the repo. Fill in the templates with your own content. Maintain them as you work.
| File | Purpose | When to update |
|---|---|---|
| 00-intro.md | Your "tell me about yourself" answer | Whenever your role or focus changes |
| 01-career-narrative.md | Career arc, themes, differentiators | Every 3-6 months, or after a major project |
| 02-star-stories.md | Story bank for behavioural questions | Within a week of shipping anything meaningful |
| 03-pre-interview-drill.md | 30-min checklist before each interview | Use as-is, run before every interview |
The trick: capture while it's fresh, drill before you need it. Memory degrades fast. Five minutes at the time beats two hours of reconstruction six months later.
System design, coding, and architecture references. See index page for the full list.
books/
├── system-design/ DDIA, ByteByteGo, Grokking, Database Internals
├── coding/ Cracking the Coding Interview
└── architecture/ DDD, Code Simplicity, Beyond Vibe Coding
17 Excalidraw diagrams covering common system design interview questions (Netflix, WhatsApp, TinyURL, Ticketmaster, Google Maps, etc), rendered as SVG so they preview inline.
Browse the gallery: excalidraw/README.md (grouped by topic, sources attributed)
To edit a diagram, open the .excalidraw file at excalidraw.com or in VS Code with the Excalidraw extension.
Reference notes and papers on specific algorithmic concepts.
Browse only: Visit the library page, read what's useful.
Fork and personalise: Fork the repo, fill in the templates with your own content. Keep it private if it contains sensitive details, or share with peers.
Reference during prep: Clone locally, open the diagrams in Excalidraw, work through the books one chapter at a time.
PRs welcome for:
- New system design diagrams (Excalidraw, with attribution to original source)
- Notes on technical concepts (deep dives, paper summaries)
- Template improvements (clearer prompts, better examples)
Not accepted:
- Direct copies of copyrighted material
- Generic AI-generated content