Two months isn’t enough time to learn EVERYTHING about software engineering, but it’s plenty of time to meet the bar for technical interviews at top tier tech companies, especially if you already have a SWE background.
I’d focus on three things:
1. Coding Interviews (LeetCode style)
People overcomplicate leetcode. At the end of the day, you just need to memorize a couple common patterns and practice. Start with the blind 75, then learn the patterns (two pointers, sliding window, DP, …) that show up in most questions. Good article on this: https://medium.com/javarevisited/15-essential-coding-interview-patterns-to-solve-100-leetcode-problems-47797d3bdd44
2. System Design theory & fundamentals.
Get a copy of Designing Data-Intensive Applications.
IMO it’s the best book you can read to understand databases, replication, partitioning, distributed systems, and a lot of the concepts that come up in system design interviews. If you’ve seen a lot of my content, it will feel VERY familiar. This book is DENSE. Don’t try to read it all in a weekend, you’ll waste you time. One chapter a week is plenty
3. Actually practice system design
Reading about system design is useful, but eventually you need to actually test whether you understand it, and apply it yourself, which is why I built Devmaxx.
The easiest way to describe it is if LeetCode and Duolingo had a baby, but instead of teaching you coding problems or Spanish, it teaches you system design.
You get daily system design questions, progress tracking that shows you what you need to work on, an endless feed of practice questions, and weekly competitive leagues.
I’d spend 10–20 minutes on Devmaxx every day (replace your evening doomscroll), solve the daily question and read the daily resource to go a bit deeper, and make it my goal to finish in the top five of my league every week.
I’d also join the Devmaxx Discord. People share what they’re seeing in interviews at big tech companies, questions they’ve gotten, and advice for navigating the interview process.
Start your free trial here: https://www.devmaxx.dev/get
Good luck with the prep!
Arjay