Skip to content
L5 Prep

Week 02 — Core patterns I

No day-by-day file exists for this week yet — the plan summary below is the source of truth until one is added.

Day-by-day plan not written yet

Only weeks/week-02.md can supply the day-by-day problem list for this week, and it does not exist. Everything below is this week's entry in 01-plan-8-weeks.md, unmodified. Nothing here is invented.

Create weeks/week-02.md at the repository root and this page becomes the full week detail automatically.

Week goals ticked0 / 0

Ticks are saved in this browser only.

Goal: stop pattern-recognizing and start pattern-deriving.

  • Topics: stacks & monotonic stacks, queues, linked lists, intervals (merge/insert/sweep line), sorting-based tricks, heaps & top-K.
  • 12–14 problems, all timed. Target: 70% solved within 25 min.
  • System design starts here: read the estimation + non-functional requirements sections of 03-system-design-curriculum.md. Do 3 back-of-envelope estimates (QPS, storage/year, bandwidth) on paper.
  • Behavioral: convert 3 raw projects into full STAR stories.

Exit criteria: given “find the next greater element”, you reach monotonic stack in under 60 seconds and can explain why it’s amortized O(n).