I'm comfortable building things with Python, but my knowledge is mostly limited to the basics. I run a startup and haven't needed algorithm practice for job interviews, so I never spent much time on coding challenge platforms. Lately, I've been curious and want to improve significantly over the next couple of months. What would be a sensible way for a beginner to start learning data structures, algorithms, and solving these problems without getting overwhelmed?
3 Answers
You don’t have to wait until you’ve mastered all the theory before starting. Try some beginner-friendly problems now, and whenever you hit a concept you don’t understand, pause and learn that topic before returning to the exercise. Just avoid spending hours stuck on one problem—early progress comes from recognizing common patterns and learning from failed attempts.
It’s worth learning programming fundamentals and the basic theory behind data structures and algorithms before relying heavily on coding challenges. These platforms generally aren’t designed to teach absolute beginners from scratch. Build up your Python skills, study concepts like arrays, hash maps, stacks, queues, recursion, trees, and sorting, then use problems to practice them.
A practical route is to follow a curated list such as NeetCode 150. Give each problem around 15–30 minutes of honest effort, then study the explanation if you’re stuck and recreate the solution yourself afterward. Focus on understanding the underlying pattern, the time and space complexity, and why the optimal approach works. It’s completely normal to need the solution for many problems at first.
That sounds like a good balance. I’ll start with simpler problems, look up the relevant theory when I’m missing a concept, and study the solutions instead of getting stuck for too long.