Tech Interview Handbook: Free Interview Prep
Tech Interview Handbook condenses the whole job-hunt cycle into short pages: resume prep, behavioral questions, algorithm study plans, and negotiation notes, written by the person who put together Blind 75. Reach for it when you want a ready-made study plan and the Grind 75 list to start practicing today. Skip it if you're deep into system design interviews, since the maintainers say that section still isn't built.
What the Handbook Offers
Tech Interview Handbook is a free, MIT-licensed collection of coding interview prep material maintained by the creator of Blind 75, with over 1,000,000 readers according to the README. It bundles algorithm cheatsheets, a resume walkthrough, and behavioral question banks into one Docusaurus site instead of scattering links across the web. Front-end-specific content lives on a separate companion site.
Why This Handbook is Popular
The repo carries 141,549 GitHub stars and 16,733 forks, numbers that build up from engineers pointing juniors to it before an onsite. Most competing interview repos on GitHub just link out to other sites; this one writes the content directly, which is the distinction the README itself draws. The author's earlier Blind 75 list already had credibility in interview circles before this handbook existed, so people showed up already trusting the curation.
Who Benefits from This Guide
Junior and mid-level engineers prepping for a first onsite loop get the most out of Tech Interview Handbook: the resume guide, behavioral bank, and Grind 75 list cover ground they haven't hit yet. Engineers who used to sit on the interviewing side and are now switching back to being the candidate benefit too, since the format assumes you need a refresher, not a first lesson. Anyone whose job search strategy is 'grind LeetCode randomly' gets a more structured technical interview study plan out of Grind 75 instead. If you already have solid system design references and only need algorithm drills, skip straight there.
Key Areas Covered
- βGrind 75, an expanded version of the author's earlier Blind 75 list, organized by topic and difficulty.
- βAlgorithm cheatsheets and tips grouped by data structure and pattern, built as quick reference rather than a teaching text.
- βA step-by-step resume guide aimed at putting together a FAANG-ready document.
- βA behavioral question bank drawn from what top tech companies actually ask.
- βCoding interview do's and don'ts, a condensed list of common pitfalls rather than a full walkthrough.
- βA companion Docusaurus site for searchable reading beyond the raw markdown files.
- βFront-end-specific interview prep, split off into its own site.
How to Use the Handbook
- β’Start with Grind 75 instead of grinding random LeetCode questions.
- β’Read the coding interview cheatsheet the night before a phone screen for a fast do's-and-don'ts refresher when there's no time left for anything longer.
- β’Run your resume through the step-by-step guide before you start applying, not after your first interview.
- β’Practice behavioral answers from the question bank alongside algorithm prep, since interviewers weigh both.
- β’Switch to the separate front-end handbook site if the role is front-end specific.
Strengths
- βFree and MIT-licensed.
- βCovers the resume, behavioral, and algorithm sides of interviewing in one place instead of forcing you to piece together separate guides for each stage.
- βGrind 75 gives you a prioritized list instead of an undifferentiated pile of LeetCode links, which is the reason the earlier Blind 75 list caught on in the first place.
- βContent is written directly into the repo rather than just linking out, which the README calls out as the difference from most other interview-prep lists on GitHub.
- βThe Docusaurus site makes the material searchable.
What the Handbook Doesn't Cover
- β³System design content isn't built yet. The README says the maintainers are still working on it and points readers toward paid third-party courses in the meantime.
- β³No formal contributing guidelines exist yet. The README says the structure is still in flux, so adding content means opening an issue and discussing it rather than following a documented process.
- β³It's a reading resource, not a practice environment. You still need LeetCode or a similar platform to actually run code against test cases.
- β³There's no visible changelog or release history on the repo, so you can't tell from GitHub alone how recently a given section was updated.
Related Interview Resources
Common Questions
Tech Interview Handbook is free and MIT-licensed, with the resume guide, behavioral bank, and Grind 75 list all published directly in the open-source repo.
Tech Interview Handbook covers algorithm and coding questions through Grind 75, behavioral questions asked by top tech companies, and resume-stage prep; system design questions aren't built out yet.
Experienced engineers get value from Tech Interview Handbook as a refresher, according to the README, which specifically calls out seasoned engineers returning to interviewing after time away from the process.
Front-end interview prep isn't in the main repo; it lives on a separate companion site, the Front End Interview Handbook, maintained by the same author.
Tech Interview Handbook is released under the MIT license, the same permissive license listed on its GitHub repository page.
The README says there are no formal contributing guidelines yet since the structure is still in flux, so open an issue or submit a pull request and the maintainers will discuss it with you.