There is a specific failure mode in DP interviews that nobody writes about. You have done the LeetCode problems. You understand memoization. You can explain overlapping subproblems. You solve Coin Change in practice, get the right answer, and feel ready.
Then the interview starts.
You get a DP problem. You recognize the pattern. You write the recurrence. Your code looks correct. And then the interviewer asks: "Walk me through what happens at dp[4]. What value is there and why?"
You freeze.
Not because you don't understand DP. Because you have never had to trace the execution state of a DP solution in real time, under pressure, out loud. There is a gap between knowing that dp[i] = max(dp[i-1], dp[i-2] + nums[i]) and being able to say with confidence what dp[4] equals on this specific input and exactly which decision produced that value.
