DEV Community: Karunya Muralidharan

🎯 Master Backtracking in Interviews: The 20% Patterns That Solve 90% of Problems

Karunya Muralidharan — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 11:41:19 +0000

🎯 Master Backtracking in Interviews

Backtracking feels scary at first — but here’s the trick: most interview questions repeat the same patterns. Once you master these, you can adapt them to almost any problem.

💡 Think of them as templates, not solutions.

🔑 Core Backtracking Patterns

Subset Generation (Pick / Not Pick)

Base of most problems like subsets, subsequences, power set.
Key idea: At each step, choose to include or exclude an element.

Permutation Building (Swap / Mark Visited)

Used in string/array permutations, anagrams.
Backtracking through all possible orders.

Constraint Satisfaction (Place → Recurse → Remove)

Classic for N-Queens, Sudoku.
Try a candidate, recurse, undo if invalid.

Path Exploration (DFS with Backtrack)

Maze problems, word search, rat in a maze.
Move in all directions, backtrack when blocked.

Combination Sum (Target Reduction)

Problems like “combination sum” or “coin change.”
Choose a number, reduce target, recurse until zero.

🚀 Why This Works

👉 These 5 patterns cover 90%+ of backtracking problems you’ll face in interviews.

👉 Once you spot the pattern, it’s just about adjusting conditions and pruning.

📝 Action Plan for Learners

Step 1: Solve 2–3 problems from each pattern.
Step 2: Write down the template.
Step 3: During interviews, map the problem → to the pattern.

🔥 Next time you see a backtracking problem, don’t panic — ask yourself:

“Which of the 5 patterns is this problem really using?”

✨ PS: I’m building Algopet, a SaaS that helps developers retain DSA patterns through gamified practice and spaced repetition — so you don’t just solve once and forget before the interview.

Already 50+ developers have joined the waitlist — save your spot today for lifetime access when we launch.

👉 Join the waitlist here

How I’m Fixing the Biggest DSA Prep Problem Nobody Talks About...

Karunya Muralidharan — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 11:59:43 +0000

Every developer preparing for Big Tech interviews knows the drill: grind LeetCode, keep streaks alive, chase ratings, repeat.

But here’s the catch—most of us fail not because we lack knowledge, but because we lose rhythm.

The human brain doesn’t thrive in endless grind; it thrives in cycles, stories, and meaning.

The Hidden Problem Nobody Talks About

When I was preparing for interviews, I realized something odd.

I knew concepts, but I would often forget them when I needed them most.

Why?

It wasn’t about memory. It was about energy.
It wasn’t about discipline. It was about psychology.

Think about it—human physiology is wired for reward loops:

Dopamine spikes when we see progress.
Serotonin stabilizes when we have a routine.
Cortisol rises when we’re stressed.

Traditional DSA prep ignores this completely. It reduces coding to a checklist instead of a journey.

And that’s why many of us burn out before we even reach the interview table.

The Spark That Led to AlgoPet

Even after discovering spaced repetition to fight forgetting, I realized there was still another battle—consistency.

Traditional DSA prep punishes you:

Miss a streak → feel guilty
Skip a day → feel like you’re behind

But that’s not how human psychology works.

Our physiology is wired for reward loops:

Dopamine when we see progress
Serotonin when we follow routines
Cortisol when we’re stressed

So I asked myself: What if prep worked with this instead of against it?

That’s when the idea of AlgoPet came alive—not just as an app, but as a metaphor.

I imagined DSA prep as raising a companion:

Every problem I solved fed it.
Every review strengthened it.
If I missed a day, it adapted instead of dying.

But there was another challenge: forgetting patterns.

Human memory fades unless refreshed. The Japanese technique shows that if you revisit something after 1, 3, 5, 7, 15, and 30 days, your brain locks it in for life.

So AlgoPet doesn’t just track streaks—it revives problems at the right intervals, fighting forgetting curves.

Every review isn’t just practice—it’s reinforcement.

What Changed for Me

Once I combined these two shifts—spaced repetition + growth mindset—everything changed:

Forgetting patterns stopped being scary.
I no longer obsessed over streak guilt.
Confidence built naturally, because I wasn’t relearning—I was reinforcing.
Consistency felt like momentum, not discipline.

Why This Matters

If you’re aiming for Big Tech, remember: you’re not just coding—you’re rewiring your brain.

DSA is a marathon, not a sprint.
Consistency beats intensity.
Meaning beats mechanics.
Memory can be trained—with the right rhythm.

The biggest prep problem isn’t algorithms—it’s how we, as humans, experience the journey.

The Takeaway

The truth is: you don’t fail DSA prep because you’re not smart enough or disciplined enough.

You fail because you’ve been prepping in a way that fights your brain instead of working with it.

The moment you align with human psychology—spaced repetition, feedback loops, growth instead of punishment—you unlock your true potential.

That’s how you walk into interviews:

Not drained, but confident.
Not fearing patterns, but recognizing them instantly.

🚀 I’m building AlgoPet to solve exactly this problem—helping developers grow with consistency and retention instead of burnout.

👉 Join the waitlist here and be part of the journey.

I Applied to 300+ Jobs, Faced Constant Rejection — Then One 8AM Update Changed Everything

Karunya Muralidharan — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 11:05:29 +0000

“I know how painful it is to wake up with hope and go to bed with disappointment. I lived that cycle for months.”

I always wondered as a child: how do computers work?
That curiosity led me to code my first game in my 12th-grade holidays. It was tiny, maybe even broken, but it sparked something in me.

Fast forward to college, during my third year, placement season hit. While others were busy choosing between companies, I was still figuring out how to code better, learning both DSA and the MERN stack — mostly from YouTube, mostly self-taught.

And somehow… I cracked my first placement early.

But things weren’t so magical.

After joining the company, I was told I’d be shifted to testing. I didn’t want that — my love was development, not just clicking buttons or logging bugs.

So I did something scary.

I quit.

Then came the hardest 2 months of my life.

Applied to 30 jobs every single day
Faced dozens of rejections
Got ghosted in interviews
Woke up with hope, slept with heartbreak
Refreshed emails way too many times

Nothing.

Until one day — 8 AM.

I updated my Naukri profile. Didn’t think much of it. Just another morning in the grind.

By evening, I got a call.

“Hi, we saw your profile. Would you be free for a quick tech round?”

Two interviews later, I had a job offer in my inbox.

And honestly? I thought it was a scam.

After getting ghosted so many times, even a real opportunity felt fake. But it was real. And today I’m working there — as an Associate Software Developer Intern.

🎯 What Worked For Me:

Updating my job portal profiles daily (especially between 8–9 AM)
Applying to 30+ jobs every day
Believing that the right company exists — it just hasn’t found you yet

💡 What I’d Tell Anyone Still Searching:

I know the pain of seeing your dream every day but not reaching it. Of watching others succeed while you’re still stuck.

But please: don’t give up.

Your effort is adding up. Even when it doesn’t show.
Something will click. The right recruiter, the right company, the right time — it’ll all align.

Just make it your mission to:

Apply 30+ Jobs daily
Learn something small daily
Update your naukri profile between 8–9 AM
Believe that you’re not late — your offer is just on its way

Final Words

If you’re in the same boat I was in — keep rowing.
And if this story helped or inspired you even a little:

👉 Follow me here on DEV — I’ll be sharing more real, raw stories from the dev world.

Let’s grow together 🚀