Interview Prep

Interview Prep

Systematic preparation for technical and behavioral interviews.

Behavioral Frameworks

STAR for Behavioral Questions

Tell me about a time when...

| Element | What to Cover | |---------|--------------| | Situation | Context — project, team, timeline | | Task | Your specific responsibility | | Action | What YOU did (not the team) | | Result | Quantified outcome, what you learned |

Common Questions to Prepare

1. "Tell me about yourself" → 60-second career narrative
2. "Biggest challenge/project" → STAR with technical depth
3. "Conflict with a teammate" → Show emotional intelligence
4. "Failure/mistake" → Honest story + what you learned
5. "Why this company?" → Research-driven, specific

Technical Interview Prep

Coding

• Practice 2-3 problems daily (LeetCode medium)
• Focus on: Arrays, Hashmaps, Trees, Graphs, DP
• Always: Clarify → Brute force → Optimize → Code → Test
• Think out loud — interviewer wants to hear your process

System Design

Practice these scenarios:

• Design URL shortener (read-heavy, hashing, scaling)
• Design chat system (WebSockets, persistence, presence)
• Design news feed (fan-out, caching, ranking)
• Design rate limiter (token bucket, sliding window, distributed)

Pre-Interview Checklist

• [ ] Research company and interviewers on LinkedIn
• [ ] Prepare 3 questions to ask at end
• [ ] Test your camera, mic, internet
• [ ] Have water, notebook, pen ready
• [ ] Review your resume and projects

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: cosmicstack-labs
• Source: cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://skills.mercuryagent.sh

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.