Start with CS145 exam practice. For weekly requirements and deadlines, see the course schedule. Case studies and interview resources follow below.
Rough format: approximately 30 MCQs plus 2–3 FRQs.
FRQ practice: One FRQ will ask you to write SQL using, for example, CTEs, window functions, and subqueries. Review Writing SQL. The projects, especially Project 1, are your best practice for this.
Week 8: practice exams will be released.
Allowed materials: You may bring two 8.5" × 11" sheets of paper (standard letter size), with any material on both sides: two double-sided sheets total. We will also provide the standard CS145 equations sheet covered in lecture.
How real systems actually work.
For SQL screens and analytics-engineer interviews. Start with the patterns interviewers actually test (Round 1 = single pattern, Round 2 = composition), then drill on the playground, then read how Postgres scales in the wild for the inevitable "how would you scale this?" follow-up.
For data-infra, backend, and platform-engineering interviews. Start with the IO cost model (the substrate every systems answer rests on), then index selection, then a real-world transaction disaster, then distributed primitives. Each step is a concrete pattern you can name in an interview.
For when class is over and you want to keep reading. Everything here is outside the course: the papers the field was built on, and engineering write-ups from teams running these systems now.