🚀 From Zero to Hero : The Roadmap I Wish I Had When I Started
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When I first started LeetCode, I made a common mistake:
❌ Solving random problems
❌ Chasing problem counts
❌ Memorizing solutions
After solving hundreds of problems, I realized that coding interviews are mostly about patterns, not individual questions.
If I had to start from zero again, this is the roadmap I would follow.
Week 1–2: Arrays & Hashing
Goals
- Array traversal 🧠
- Frequency counting 🧠
- HashMap fundamentals 🧠
- Set operations 🧠
Problems (14)
Easy
- Two Sum (#1)
- Contains Duplicate (#217)
- Valid Anagram (#242)
- Intersection of Two Arrays II (#350)
- Single Number (#136)
- Missing Number (#268)
- Majority Element (#169)
Medium
- Group Anagrams (#49)
- Top K Frequent Elements (#347)
- Product of Array Except Self (#238)
- Longest Consecutive Sequence (#128)
- Subarray Sum Equals K (#560)
- Find All Duplicates in an Array (#442)
- Continuous Subarray Sum (#523)
Week 3–4: Two Pointers & Sliding Window
Goals
- Two pointers 🧠
- Sliding window fixed 🧠
- Sliding window variable 🧠
- Pattern recognition 🧠
Problems (14)
Easy
- Valid Palindrome (#125)
- Move Zeroes (#283)
- Reverse String (#344)
- Squares of a Sorted Array (#977)
- Merge Strings Alternately (#1768)
Medium
- Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters (#3)
- Container With Most Water (#11)
- Permutation in String (#567)
- 3Sum (#15)
- Minimum Size Subarray Sum (#209)
- Longest Repeating Character Replacement (#424)
- Find All Anagrams in a String (#438)
- Max Consecutive Ones III (#1004)
- Fruit Into Baskets (#904)
Week 5–6: Linked Lists
Goals
- Pointer manipulation 🧠
- Fast & slow pointers 🧠
- Reversal techniques 🧠
Problems (14)
Easy
- Reverse Linked List (#206)
- Linked List Cycle (#141)
- Merge Two Sorted Lists (#21)
- Palindrome Linked List (#234)
- Middle of the Linked List (#876)
- Remove Linked List Elements (#203)
Medium
- Remove Nth Node From End (#19)
- Rotate List (#61)
- Swap Nodes in Pairs (#24)
- Odd Even Linked List (#328)
- Reorder List (#143)
- Add Two Numbers (#2)
- Partition List (#86)
- Sort List (#148)
Week 7–8: Trees (DFS / BFS / BST)
Goals
- DFS 🧠
- BFS 🧠
- BST properties 🧠
- Recursion 🧠
Problems (14)
Easy
- Maximum Depth of Binary Tree (#104)
- Same Tree (#100)
- Invert Binary Tree (#226)
- Balanced Binary Tree (#110)
- Minimum Depth of Binary Tree (#111)
- Path Sum (#112)
Medium
- Binary Tree Level Order Traversal (#102)
- Validate Binary Search Tree (#98)
- Kth Smallest Element in a BST (#230)
- Binary Tree Right Side View (#199)
- Lowest Common Ancestor (#235)
- Construct Binary Tree (#105)
- Binary Tree Zigzag Level Order (#103)
- Count Good Nodes (#1448)
Week 9–10: Heap, Greedy & Intervals
Goals
- Top-K 🧠
- Greedy decisions 🧠
- Interval merging 🧠
Problems (14)
Easy
Medium
- Kth Largest Element (#215)
- Merge Intervals (#56)
- Non-overlapping Intervals (#435)
- Insert Interval (#57)
- Task Scheduler (#621)
- Reorganize String (#767)
- Gas Station (#134)
- Find K Closest Elements (#658)
- Hand of Straights (#846)
- Maximum Units (#1710)
Week 11–12: Dynamic Programming
Goals
- State definition 🧠
- Transition equation 🧠
- Memoization 🧠
- Tabulation 🧠
Problems (14)
Easy
Medium
- House Robber (#198)
- House Robber II (#213)
- Coin Change (#322)
- Longest Increasing Subsequence (#300)
- Word Break (#139)
- Decode Ways (#91)
- Partition Equal Subset Sum (#416)
- Maximum Product Subarray (#152)
- Combination Sum IV (#377)
- Target Sum (#494)
- Coin Change II (#518)
💡 Final Advice
Don't count solved problems.
Count mastered patterns.
A candidate who deeply understands 20 patterns is usually stronger than someone who has solved 500 random questions.
What pattern are you currently struggling with the most?
👇 Comment below and let's discuss.
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