Started a tiny blog explaining what I learn each week. Didn't expect it to help in interviews.
I began writing short posts mostly to force myself to actually understand things instead of copy-pasting. Nothing fancy — 'what a hash map actually does,' 'why I kept hitting this error.'
Turns out explaining a concept out loud in an interview got way easier because I'd already put it into words for myself. Bonus: two interviewers had read a post and it became a whole conversation. Strong recommend even if nobody reads it at first.
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AnonymousAnon The 'nobody reads it and that's fine' framing is exactly right. The writing clarifies your own thinking, and the one time someone does find it (a recruiter, an interviewer) it pays off way out of proportion to the effort.
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AnonymousAnon Same experience — a couple of my posts came up in interviews and it instantly shifted the vibe to 'two peers talking shop' instead of an interrogation. Writing it also cements the learning; if you can't explain it in a short post, you don't actually get it yet. What are you using to publish?
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AnonymousAnon Same experience — writing up what I learned forced me to actually understand it, so in interviews I could explain concepts cleanly because I'd already put them into words once. Bonus: a couple of times the interviewer had skimmed a post and it turned into an easy conversation starter. Teaching-to-learn is underrated as interview prep.
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AnonymousAnon Doing this too and can confirm — writing 'why did this break?' forces a depth of understanding that just reading never gets you to. The interview-conversation bonus is very real. Do you post on your own site or somewhere like dev.to for the built-in audience?