DSA Mentorship by Istasis
Table of contents
- 🏷️ Who This Is For
- 👨🏫 Who am I?
- 💡 What This Is (and Isn’t)
- 📅 Format & Flow
- 📄 What We’ll Cover
- 🎁 What You’ll Get
- ✨ How This Is Different
- 💬 What Past Students Have To Say
- 📣 Apply Now
- ❓ FAQ
- ✉️ Contact me
- ❤️ Final Note
🏷️ Who This Is For
This is for engineers who:
- Are preparing for product company interviews or remote roles
- Keep restarting DSA but never feel confident
- Don’t want to brute-force 300 LeetCode problems
- Want real structure, someone to talk to, and personal feedback
👨🏫 Who am I?
Hi, I’m Istasis Mishra.
Back in school, I was fortunate to represent India at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) 2018. During that time, I also reached 6⭐ on CodeChef and Candidate Master on Codeforces, which gave me a strong foundation in algorithmic problem solving.
I went on to pursue a dual degree (B.Tech + M.S.) in Computer Science by Research at the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad, and in 2023, I joined Rubrik as a Software Engineer, where I’ve since conducted 20+ DSA interviews as part of the hiring process.
A few years ago, I also spent a year teaching at Unacademy, and over time, I’ve had the opportunity to mentor peers preparing for ICPC and Olympiads — many of whom have gone on to excel at top engineering colleges.
This mentorship is my way of bringing it all together — a place to share what I’ve learned, and to teach DSA the way I believe it should be taught: through clarity, first principles, and honest, structured practice. No grind. No fluff. Just deep understanding.
You can learn a bit more about my journey in this interview with Coding Ninjas (Pardon me, this is a very old interview 😅).
Also, feel free to check out some of my free sessions on YouTube — I hope they help!
💡 What This Is (and Isn’t)
This is a small group mentorship experience, not a mass-market bootcamp. I’ll know every student personally. I’ll track your progress, check in, and work with you on what you need.
There are no pre-recorded videos. No endless dashboards. Just live teaching, real conversations, and structured learning.
📅 Format & Flow
- Duration: 4 weeks
- Sessions: 2/week (90 mins each, live on Zoom with handwritten walkthroughs)
- Community: Private Discord for ongoing questions, peer support, and weekly challenges
- Office Hours: 1:1s available to discuss anything you’re stuck on
- Access: Session notes and recordings available
📄 What We’ll Cover
| Week | Topics |
|---|---|
| 1 | Arrays, Strings, Hashmaps, Sliding Window, Binary Search, Greedy Algorithms |
| 2 | Segment Trees, Tries, Disjoint Set Unions |
| 3 | Trees, Graphs, BFS/DFS, Shortest Paths |
| 4 | Recursion, Dynamic Programming |
No memorization. No copy-paste templates. Just first-principles understanding and consistent practice.
🎁 What You’ll Get
Supportive, personal, and progress-focused.
🧭 Structured Learning
- 8 live sessions (of 90 minutes) with clear, progressive concepts
- Weekly curated problem sets
- Live whiteboard-style walkthroughs
🤝 Personal Guidance
- 1:1 office hours with me (you book when needed)
- Active Discord with channels for every topic
- Real check-ins and honest feedback
🎯 Interview Preparation
- Weekly Codeforces leaderboard challenges
- Mock interviews for top performers
- Notes & recordings for revision
✨ How This Is Different
| What You Get Here | What Most Courses Offer |
|---|---|
| Direct mentorship from a hiring engineer | Pre-recorded videos from content creators |
| Small batch + personal check-ins | Massive batches with no personal attention |
| First-principles problem solving | Pattern memorization and brute-force grind |
| Honest, 1:1 feedback | Generic comments or auto-graded reports |
| Codeforces-based live challenge leaderboard | Internal tools with no external recognition |
💬 What Past Students Have To Say
This is what past attendees of my Unacademy sessions have said
“Thank you for giving us the best learning experience!😇💯 There’s a lot of scope in your class to think over a problem and discuss the ideas, which helps us improve our PS skills to a great extent!” – Prathyusha Pecchi
“The way you teach makes each and every topic so much easier to understand. You are making concepts like cake walk.. After learning from you I’m very much confident in the concepts. Thank you sir 🙏” – Praveenkumar GOUDAR
📣 Apply Now
- Spots: Very limited, selected manually
- Fee: ₹7,999 (for the full 4-week experience)
- Application: Takes 2–3 minutes to fill
❓ FAQ
What if I miss a live session?
You’ll have access to recordings for all sessions — so you can revisit anytime. I will clear whatever doubts you have in our 1:1 session!
Do I need prior knowledge of DSA?
Basic programming familiarity is good enough. I’ll teach everything else from the ground up.
Will I get placement support?
There’s no formal placement support, but I shall try my best to help with interview prep, mock interviews, and offer personal guidance post-bootcamp based on need and availability.
What if I’m not selected after applying?
You can join the waitlist. I will open new batches based on demand and capacity.
What tools will we use?
Zoom for sessions, Discord for community, Codeforces for challenges, and Notion/Docs for notes.
How many students per batch?
I will take single digit number of students per batch to ensure everyone gets enough attention.
✉️ Contact me
For any queries or doubts, get in touch with me on my
❤️ Final Note
If you’re reading this and feeling unsure — I’ve been there too.
This isn’t about finishing a checklist. It’s about learning in a way that finally sticks. It’s not about passing one interview — it’s about knowing you’ll be able to handle whatever comes your way.
If that sounds like what you need, I’d love to have you inside.
Let’s learn this properly, together.