How to Study for Coding Interviews While Working Full Time

You work 8-10 hours a day. By the time you get home, you are mentally drained. The last thing you want to do is open LeetCode and stare at a blank editor. Yet somehow, you need to prepare for interviews if you want to level up your career.

This is the reality for most engineers. The good news: you do not need to quit your job or sacrifice your sanity to prepare. The key is to stop optimizing for intensity and start optimizing for consistency.

The animation below shows how consistent, short daily sessions add up to massive progress over time, compared to the boom-and-bust cycle of marathon weekends.

Key insight: The "steady" approach accumulates more total study hours AND retains more information because it leverages spaced repetition.

The Myth of Marathon Sessions

Many engineers think they need 4-hour study sessions to make progress. This is counterproductive for two reasons:

1. Cognitive fatigue — After your workday, your brain has limited capacity. Long sessions past that limit produce diminishing returns.
2. Unsustainability — You cannot maintain 4-hour sessions for months. You will burn out and quit.

Shorter, consistent sessions beat sporadic marathon sessions every time. This is because of how human memory works: Learning triggers synaptic connections, but those connections are fragile. Sleep is when your hippocampus "replays" new information and transfers it to long-term storage. If you cram 8 hours on Saturday, you only get one sleep cycle to process all of it. If you study 1 hour a day for 8 days, you get 8 sleep cycles, each consolidating a smaller, more manageable chunk.

This is why the spaced repetition technique is so powerful—it is designed to exploit this biological truth.

The 1-Hour Daily Framework

One hour per day is the sweet spot for working professionals. It is short enough to be sustainable and long enough to make real progress.

What to Study During Your Hour

Having a study schedule is useless if you spend the time inefficiently. The most common mistake is to pick problems at random. Instead, follow a structured curriculum that builds concepts in the correct dependency order.

The key is to master each topic before moving on. Do not skip to Dynamic Programming because it "sounds impressive." If you cannot implement a binary search from memory, you are not ready for DP.

Energy Management > Time Management

Not all study hours are created equal. Solving a Dynamic Programming problem requires a different level of cognitive fuel than reviewing flashcards. Match your task to your energy level.

High Energy (Morning / Weekends)

Do your learning here. Tackle new topics, hard problems, or complex implementations. This is when your prefrontal cortex is most active and ready for "heavy lifting."

Low Energy (After Work / Lunch)

Do your reviewing here. Go through your spaced repetition deck. Redo problems you've already solved to build muscle memory. You don't need peak brain power to review; you just need to show up.

Finding Your Time Slots

Where does that hour come from? Here are the most common options:

Option A: The Early Riser (Recommended)

Wake up one hour early. Your mind is fresh. No Slack notifications. No meetings. This is the highest-quality study time.

Tip: Lay out your study materials the night before. Eliminate morning friction. If you have to search for "what to study," you've already lost.

Option B: The Lunchtime Warrior

If you have a flexible lunch, use 30-45 minutes for study. This is perfect for flashcards and reviewing old problems. It breaks up the workday and makes you feel productive.

Option C: The Evening Grinder

The most common choice, but also the hardest. Your energy is lowest. Combat this by starting immediately after dinner or a workout. Do not sit on the couch "just for a minute." Momentum is everything.

Option D: The Weekend Warrior

Use Saturday and Sunday mornings for longer sessions (2-3 hours). This is the time to tackle harder topics that require deep focus. But do not skip weekday sessions—consistency matters more than intensity.

Protecting Your Study Time

The biggest enemy of consistent study is not lack of time—it is lack of boundaries. Protect your study time with these strategies:

The Sustainable Pace

At 1 hour per day, 5-6 days per week, you can cover comprehensive interview prep in 4-6 months. This is the sustainable pace that avoids burnout.

Avoiding Burnout

Interview prep burnout is real. Watch for these signs:

• Dreading study sessions
• Unable to focus during study time
• Feeling like you are getting worse, not better
• Study time bleeding into sleep or relationships

If you notice these signs, take a complete break for 2-3 days. No LeetCode, no tutorials. Refill the tank:

• Sleep 8+ hours: Your brain cleanses toxins during sleep.
• Go outside: Nature lowers cortisol levels.
• Socialize: Talk to humans about non-tech topics.

Then return at a reduced pace. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

How TerminalTales Supports Working Professionals

TerminalTales is designed for busy engineers:

• Story format — Easy to pick up where you left off. No context-switching penalty.
• Built-in progress tracking — See exactly where you are in the curriculum.
• Spaced repetition — The system remembers what you need to review. You just show up.
• Bite-sized chapters — Each chapter is designed to be completable in single sessions.

You do not need to quit your job to prepare for interviews. You just need a sustainable system and the discipline to show up every day.