If you want to know what it looks like to use AlgoDaily then this is the review you’ve been looking for.
AlgoDaily follows the style of training found in many other tech interview prep platforms but includes elements not found in any other prep platform.
In this review, we will see whether it applies the correct formula for a winning interview prep platform or not.
You’ll get to know what AlgoDaily is all about, what it offers, who should use it, and the pricing as well.
We will also see what viable alternatives exist in case you want to explore more options.
AlgoDaily TLDR; 🤔
AlgoDaily is a tech interview solution that aims to provide students with daily interview questions and challenges.
It is a subscription-based service that costs $39/month and $119/year (for the annual plan). 👎
In contrast, I recommend Tech Interview Pro, a comprehensive solution for software engineers who want to ace their interviews.
This course offers more practice questions and also costs a one-time fee of $497. You also get your resume reviewed by the instructor, a biweekly live Q&A, and more.
The testimonials are all over the Facebook community and the internet as a whole. Over 2000+ students have gotten jobs at FAANG companies earning $200,000+ per year 💥💥
What Is AlgoDaily All about?
AlgoDaily was created by Jake Zhang in 2018 as an interview prep solution. Zake has filled various software engineering positions in several tech companies. Right now, he is a software developer at Kindred Group.
AlgoDaily was built on the mantra of practicing at least one coding question a day as a way to learn through consistency hence the name.
AlgoDaily’s curriculum is built around algorithms and data structures, system design, coding, and tutorials on how to pass the technical interviews.
There are lots of courses, lessons, and challenges to solve. Your progress is readily accessible and you can flaunt your achievements through the leaderboard
You can even share your progress on social media platforms.
The most noticeable thing about AlgoDaily is the way it slightly modifies the traditional online course experience.
Now, you don’t only learn through the lessons and whatever they contain. You also get coding questions emailed into your inbox every day to solve on the go.
Another core feature of AlgoDaily worth mentioning is the set of tutorials that introduce you to the platform and how to use it for the best results.
That’s basically what AlgoDaily is all about. Whether you want to do some intensive study or you just want to prep on the go, you are covered.
How Does AlgoDaily Help You Land a job?
AlgoDaily aims to equip its users with the necessary skills to pass technical interviews.
It emphasizes spending a lot of time learning a variety of coding and algorithm concepts and practicing coding questions for tech interviews.
That’s understandable. It has been proven through experience that the more time you spend preparing for exams, the more likely you are to pass them.
It’s only on very rare occasions that cramming loads of information can work but that’s just luck and luck is highly unreliable.
One of the nifty features recently introduced into the platform is the use of flashcards to enable spaced repetition or repeated reviews of concepts regularly.
Aside from the core technical stuff, the platform also contains informational articles on mental preparedness and how to answer questions in such a way as to impress the interviewer.
I even went through the section on how to answer questions that you have no clue about and it made sense.
Who Is It For?
AlgoDaily is for anyone who is preparing for coding interviews but there is a bit more to that so let’s get to the specifics.
Prospective Tech Interview Candidates
Anyone who is preparing for a tech interview can consider AlgoDaily. The platform has integrated several tricks into its learning experience to entice potential users.
For instance, most of the training employs rich text for a distraction-free and active learning experience. There are videos too, but for specific concepts.
Every day, you get coding questions emailed into your inbox so that you have at least one exercise to chew on in a day.
The emails are fairly regular although when I tried it over a week (starting from Monday), I got an email on that day and all through the week except for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and strangely, Monday which should make it a full week of testing the feature. I started getting emails again on Tuesday.
I can understand the weekend situation but why I didn’t get a question-loaded email on Monday might remain a mystery. Anyways, prepare to face a little inconsistency in this daily email feature when using it.
Instructors
That is as well. AlgoDaily is not only for learning. You can upload your course on it too. That’s how the platform got its wealth of courses and lessons.
Coding Enthusiasts
Anyone with a heavy appetite for coding questions will find AlgoDaily a good match. There are more than 1000 challenges and quizzes to deal with. And if you add the daily question mail, then you’d be hard-pressed to exhaust everything AlgoDaily has to offer.
What Is Inside AlgoDaily?
Simply put, there are a lot of courses and lessons on the platform.
That includes but is not limited to important domains such as coding, data structures, and algorithms, system design, frontend, machine learning et cetera.
You don’t get a lot of video content as most of the training is given through rich text with hundreds of illustrations, diagrams, charts, and so on.
The curriculum is wide and it’s divided into four major sections which are; essentials, specialties, non-technical, and guided. Let’s talk a little about them.
Essential
This section is like an introduction both to AlgoDaily itself and the whole interview process.
It is further divided into four branches which are technical interview preparation, data structures and algorithms, and then, systems design and architecture.
The technical interview prep part gets down to the nitty-gritty of interview prep. It shows how to study for a technical interview as well as the proper presentation to increase your chances of passing the interview and getting picked.
The data structures and algorithms sub-section guides you through various topics and concepts in the said domain.
The lessons will take you from the basics, help you connect what you’ve known before to what you are learning, and also show you the easy way to tackle questions in data structures and algorithms.
The system design and architecture give insight into the fundamentals of system design. The lessons therein dive into the applications of the various concepts.
The system design and architecture module are for those who are aspiring to
learn how to build apps and internet services that rely on complex software and networks to function.
Specialties
As the name suggests, this section gives tutorials for specific domains in software engineering.
There are up to six domain-specific courses to choose from. They include coding on its own, frontend engineering, SQL, DevOps, machine learning, and object-oriented programming (OOP).
There is also a course for anyone who wants to become a startup engineer. In this regard, AlgoDaily is good for those who would like to become entrepreneurs using their knowledge of computer programming.
Non-technical
After spending so much time-solving coding problems and filling up your weak areas, losing the interview or the job is not an option.
You need more than just the coding and programming smarts you have learned to pass the interviews. You also need to showcase your interpersonal skills and leave a good impression on the recruiter.
This is where the non-technical section comes in. It will hone you in other areas you need to pay attention to aside from the technical knowledge you have gained.
So for instance, you will learn how to craft your resume, what kind of posts to apply to, how to highlight your experiences to grab attention, and so on.
The resume tutorial is something I find to be really helpful. In many cases, a poorly written resume can ruin your efforts and cost you a job you would otherwise have gotten.
There are many things to know about crafting an impressive resume. You need to know how to format it, how to write compellingly, the kind of projects you can take to boost the resume, and so on.
This section also talks about the most common questions in behavior interviews, explains how to work with recruiters, and how to make a good impression in an HR interview.
Are Students Getting Results?
The following screenshots contain what many past students of AlgoDaily have to say about the platform.
How Much Does AlgoDaily Cost (Price)?
AlgoDaily has three subscription models you can choose from. They are annual, monthly, and lifetime access.
The annual plan charges you $20 monthly which amounts to $240 paid once on yearly basis.
The monthly plan costs $59 and is billed yes, every month.
And the lifetime access plan will set you by $299 paid once.
Any Discount?
Yes. For now, AlgoDaily is lowering its subscription plans except for the lifetime access plan by 50%.
So if you sign up now, you can pay $120 and $40 approximately for the annual and monthly plans respectively.
Refund Policy
AlgoDaily does not do refunds. It seems that provision was there before because there is a long story in the FAQ section that explains why they stopped accepting refund requests.
The exception, according to them, is in the case of lifetime subscriptions. You can cancel within three days of your subscription and your money will be refunded.
Pros of AlgoDaily
Every product, software or otherwise, reflects the rationale of the person or team behind it and it will surely come with its own fair share of strengths and weaknesses.
So what is there to like about AlgoDaily?
Ability to Make Code Projects Your Own
It can be difficult to have to give up credit for something excellent you did.
Let’s say you worked on a project and did very well on it but you have to give up any right to being acknowledged for it because you were doing it for someone.
That kind of thing doesn’t happen on AlgoDaily. Whatever code project you worked on or brilliant code solution you came up with, you retain all credit for it rather than AlgoDaily claiming it.
You can save your code solutions and even save them to GitHub repositories for future reference or build up your portfolio.
Community
An online community is especially useful for a course platform. You can interact with people in the same game as you, share your ideas, and tap into theirs.
Many of the solutions presented to the code problems are from community members. And almost all of the challenges have the “community solution” tag that you can click to see how others have solved that very problem.
The community is only open to users with premium membership but it’s worth it.
Lifetime Access
Lifetime access is a must-have feature in these tough economic times. Paying for something once and not having to pay for it again will reduce the number of items on your expenses list.
Even if you run short of change, you can still enjoy that service you paid for, in this case, AlgoDaily with peace of mind that you made a good investment.
Free Learning Resources
Some technical skills are provided free of charge and almost all non-technical tutorials come free.
A balance of free and paid content on any platform is high on the list for many people. It can give you a hint as to whether the platform’s content is as good as the claim.
Cons of AlgoDaily
While there’s much to like about AlgoDaily, there are many shortcomings that are worth addressing. Let’s go through them.
Poor Refund Policy
I have mentioned that there is a long story on AlgoDaily’s website about why they do not accept requests for refunds but I feel that’s not a good enough excuse.
It doesn’t give much peace of mind to allow only three days for refunds when you do a lifetime subscription.
That means any mistake you make when signing up for the platform will be very detrimental as you cannot request a refund.
Soft Skills Training is Missing
No company would like to hire a candidate who merely has technical skills but lacks soft skills like proper communication and teamwork.
AlgoDaily goes a little bit beyond just teaching technical skills but that’s all about it. It might teach you how to frame your resume well or how to switch software careers but it won’t teach you to be able to work with a team.
No Post-prep Support for Landing Jobs
AlgoDaily is not like some other tech interview prep platforms that can link you up with big tech companies after you are done with prep and that to me is probably the most serious downside.
The journey to your career success does not end with your interview prep. So if your platform of choice has a way of connecting or flagging you to top tech companies, that’s great.
If not, then you’ve got to rely solely on the technical training you’ve acquired from a platform like AlgoDaily. And the lack of soft skills training for an additional edge over other tech candidates makes for a double disadvantage.
Limited Number of Programming Languages
AlgoDaily has only eight programming languages to select from.
That count may be enough to cover many people’s needs but I can’t vouch for it here. Many platforms support more than ten programming languages so evidently there’s much room for improvement here.
Customer Support is Slow
Remember that part where I didn’t get a question email in my inbox consistently for a week?
I reached out to the support team via AlgoDaily’s support email but four days later, I hadn’t gotten any response. (I sent my complaint on a Wednesday and I hadn’t gotten any reply by the following Sunday)
Customer support should be quick in their response at least. It shows how much the business or the organization cares about its users. A day or two should be enough for a kind of platform like AlgoDaily.
However, that’s not the case here, so it’s something you’d definitely want to watch out for if you decide to choose AlgoDaily.
Top Alternatives to AlgoDaily
I totally understand that you might not be quite satisfied with AlgoDaily’s package. Don’t fret as there are tons of competitors out there. Let me just go over two of them briefly.
1. CoderPro
CoderPro (review) is one of Techlead’s tech interview prep courses that has proven its mettle.
In case you are not familiar with Techlead, he is the famous Patrick Shyu, a Silicon Valley native, and renowned software engineer.
Techlead has faced multiple tech interviews in big tech companies like Facebook and Google. That’s not all though, he has also been an interviewer himself in many high-profile tech companies.
CoderPro is Techlead’s compilation of video courses on coding. Yes, just coding.
It’s not the full package as there is more to software engineering than just coding, but if coding isn’t your forte, CoderPro is just for you. The videos are very comprehensive and teach in a down-to-earth manner.
2. Tech Interview Pro
Tech Interview Pro (review) is the other tech interview prep course designed by Techlead.
Tech Interview Pro is the all-rounder course that every aspiring SWE should at least take a look at.
It offers a comprehensive syllabus that contains up to 150 videos covering all the essential aspects of software engineering; coding, data structures and algorithms, and system design.
How is Tech Interview Pro (TIP) the leading course for interview candidates? Other courses just teach you the technical skills but TIP also gives extensive training on soft skills, even going as far as discussing how to negotiate your offer and how to transition between careers.
Techlead also helps his students on a more personal level than other course creators. It comes in the form of individual resume reviews by Techlead himself, bi-weekly Q/A sessions, and mock interview sessions.
Should You Buy The Course?
AlgoDaily does feature a distraction-free style of teaching using rich text as well as daily question mail. It even has a lifetime access plan at a moderate cost.
But beyond the core technical skill training, there is little else. Heck, you don’t even get mock interviews.
In that regard, there is little that separates it from Leetcode. I mean, you can get on Leetcode almost everything that AlgoDaily offers.
My ultimate advice would be to buy the course if you are only concerned with learning the purely technical skills to be a good programmer. For anything beyond that, look somewhere else.
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