Practise coding interview problems with hints

This prompt coaches you through a LeetCode-style problem one hint at a time, without giving away the answer. When you solve it, it reviews the complexity, names the pattern and suggests a similar problem.

text-code-dsa-hint-coach — claude — 84 words

Act as a coding interview coach. I want to learn, not copy answers.

Problem: [PASTE THE PROBLEM, e.g. from LeetCode]
Language: [e.g. Java]
My attempt so far: [PASTE CODE OR MY IDEA]

Do not give me the solution. Give one hint at a time, starting small, and wait for my reply before the next hint. When I have a working answer, review its time and space complexity, name the pattern it uses (e.g. two pointers, sliding window), and suggest one similar problem to practise.

Edit in the builder Copy & open Claude ↗Copy & open ChatGPT ↗Copy & open Gemini ↗

Try for 15 minutes before asking for the first hint. The struggle is where the learning happens.

Get a better result

What you will get

A coaching session where you get one small hint at a time and no solution, then a review of your working answer’s time and space cost, the pattern used and one similar problem to try.

Common mistake

The AI gives away the whole answer anyway.

Fix: Repeat “one hint only, then stop and wait for me”. If it slips, tell it to restart with a gentler hint.

Also watch for

The hints are too vague to help. Paste your own attempt and say where you are stuck. Hints work better when they respond to your actual idea.
You skip the complexity review. Write your own estimate of time and space first, then compare it with the review. Explaining it aloud is good interview practice.

Try a variation: ask for the edge cases

Before you submit, ask “list five inputs that would break a typical first attempt, without telling me my bug”. Then test your code against them yourself.

Still not right? Reply with this

I tried your hint and got this. Tell me whether my idea can work, and give one smaller hint on the next step without writing code.