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How to approach DP problems in interviews?

Sachin AhujaSachin Ahuja
8/7/2025
30

I've been solving DP problems for 2 months now but I still can't solve new ones in interviews. I freeze up every time.

I can solve standard DP problems like knapsack, LIS, coin change etc. but when they modify the problem even slightly, I'm lost.

What's the right approach? Should I focus on recognizing patterns or should I try to derive the recurrence from scratch every time?

Also, does anyone have a list of the most frequently asked DP problems in FAANG interviews?

dynamic-programminginterview-prepfaangtips

Comments (1)

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Mayank Bhatt
Mayank Bhatt8/15/2025

I totally get where you're coming from, Sachin. DP can be really intimidating in interviews. What helped me was focusing more on understanding the framework of common DP problems, like identifying subproblems and base cases quickly. Once you get the hang of that, modified problems become easier.