Machine Learning Engineer Data Structures & Algorithms Interview Questions

Bless M. - "You can ask some clarifying questions like 1) Ask if the list is already sorted or not 2) is zero included in the list ? 3) Natural numbers are usually positive numbers ( clarify they are non negatives) Solution : 1) If sorted use two pointers and sort them in O(N) 2) if not sorted , -ve / only +ve numbers in the list doesn't matter - the easiest solution is Use a priority queue and push the number and its square in each iteration Finally return the list returned by the priority Queue. N"See full answer

Ritaban M. - " Brute Force Two Pointer Solution: from typing import List def two_sum(nums, target): for i in range(len(nums)): for j in range(i+1, len(nums)): if nums[i]+nums[j]==target: return [i,j] return [] debug your code below print(two_sum([2, 7, 11, 15], 9)) `"See full answer

Divya R. - "public static Integer[] findLargest(int[] input, int m) { if(input==null || input.length==0) return null; PriorityQueue minHeap=new PriorityQueue(); for(int i:input) { if(minHeap.size()(int)top){ minHeap.poll(); minHeap.add(i); } } } Integer[] res=minHeap.toArray(new Integer[0]); Arrays.sort(res); return res; }"See full answer

Stanley Y. - "First of all, stack and heap memory are abstraction on top of the hardware by the compiler. The hardware is not aware of stack and heap memory. There is only a single piece of memory that a program has access to. The compiler creates the concepts of stack and heap memory to run the programs efficiently. Programs use stack memory to store local variables and a few important register values such as frame pointer and return address for program counter. This makes it easier for the compiler to gene"See full answer

Rick E. - " from typing import List def getnumberof_islands(binaryMatrix: List[List[int]]) -> int: if not binaryMatrix: return 0 rows = len(binaryMatrix) cols = len(binaryMatrix[0]) islands = 0 for r in range(rows): for c in range(cols): if binaryMatrixr == 1: islands += 1 dfs(binaryMatrix, r, c) return islands def dfs(grid, r, c): if ( r = len(grid) "See full answer

Anonymous Roadrunner - "from typing import List def three_sum(nums: List[int]) -> List[List[int]]: nums.sort() triplets = set() for i in range(len(nums) - 2): firstNum = nums[i] l = i + 1 r = len(nums) - 1 while l 0: r -= 1 elif potentialSum < 0: l += 1 "See full answer

Anonymous Roadrunner - "class ListNode: def init(self, val=0, next=None): self.val = val self.next = next def has_cycle(head: ListNode) -> bool: slow, fast = head, head while fast and fast.next: slow = slow.next fast = fast.next.next if slow == fast: return True return False debug your code below node1 = ListNode(1) node2 = ListNode(2) node3 = ListNode(3) node4 = ListNode(4) creates a linked list with a cycle: 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4"See full answer

Tiago R. - "function findPrimes(n) { if (n < 2) return []; const primes = []; for (let i=2; i <= n; i++) { const half = Math.floor(i/2); let isPrime = true; for (let prime of primes) { if (i % prime === 0) { isPrime = false; break; } } if (isPrime) { primes.push(i); } } return primes; } `"See full answer

Rick E. - " O(n) time from typing import List def generate_parentheses(n: int): res = [] def generate(buf, opened, closed): if len(buf) == 2 * n: if n != 0: res.append(buf) return if opened < n: generate( buf + "(", opened + 1, closed) if closed < opened: generate(buf + ")", opened, closed + 1) generate("", 0, 0) return res debug your code below print(generate_parentheses(1"See full answer

Jerry O. - "\# Definition for a binary tree node. class TreeNode: def init(self, val=0, left=None, right=None): self.val = val self.left = left self.right = right class Solution: def maxPathSum(self, root: TreeNode) -> int: self.max_sum = float('-inf')"See full answer

Michael B. - "Write a function which Caesar ciphers all the strings so that the first character is "a". Use ascii code points and the modulo operator to do this. Use this function to create a hashmap between each string and the CC-a string. Then go through each key:value pair in the hashmap, and use the CC-a ciphered value as the key in a new defaultdict(list), adding the original string to the value field in the output."See full answer

Sarvesh G. - "def calc(expr): ans = eval(expr) return ans your code goes debug your code below print(calc("1 + 1")) `"See full answer

Tiago R. - "function addChildren(root, val, inorder) { const rootInOrderIndex = inorder.indexOf(root.value); const childrenInOrderIndex = inorder.indexOf(val); if (childrenInOrderIndex < rootInOrderIndex) { if (!root.left) { root.left = new TreeNode(val); } else { addChildren(root.left, val, inorder); } } else { if (!root.right) { root.right = new TreeNode(val); } else { addChildren(root.right,"See full answer

Anonymous Quail - " from typing import List def least_interval(tasks: List[str], n: int) -> int: pass # your code goes here if n == 0: return len(tasks) dictionary = {} total_sum = len(tasks) output = 0 for t in tasks: if t in dictionary: dictionary[t] += 1 else: dictionary[t] = 1 dictLen = len(dictionary) while total_sum > 0: for key in dictionary.keys(): if dictionary[key] > 0: "See full answer

GalacticInterviewer - "Approach 1: Use sorting and return the kth largest element from the sorted list. Time complexity: O(nlogn) Approach 2: Use max heap and then select the kth largest element. time complexity: O(n+logn) Approach 3: Quickselect. Time complexity O(n) I explained my interviewer the 3 approaches. He told me to solve in a naive manner. Used Approach 1 had some time left so coded approach 3 also The average time complexity of Quickselect is O(n), making it very efficient for its purpose. However, in"See full answer

Mark K. - "This problem could be solved in two ways(both using Kadane's algorithm): Simple iterating 1-D dp function maxSubarraySum(nums) { const n = nums.length; if ( n === 0) return 0; const dp = Array(n).fill(0); dp[0] = nums[0]; for (let i = 1; i < n; i++) { dp[i] = Math.max(nums[i], dp[i - 1] + nums[i]); } return Math.max(...dp); } "See full answer

Guilherme F. - "A much better solution than the one in the article, below: It looks like the ones writing articles here in Javascript do not understand the time/space complexity of javascript methods. shift, splice, sort, etc... In the solution article you have a shift and a sort being done inside a while, that is, the multiplication of Ns. My solution, below, iterates through the list once and then sorts it, separately. It´s O(N+Log(N)) class ListNode { constructor(val = 0, next = null) { th"See full answer

Michael B. - "Problem: Given an input string txt consisting of alphanumeric characters and the parentheses characters '(' & ')', write a function which removes the minimum number of characters to return a version of the string with properly balanced parenthesis. Answer: You can do this with a counter. Psuedo-Python Start with counter = 0 output = [] Iterate through the string, every time you encounter a '(', increment the counter. Add the character to the output. If you encounter a ')', decrement the coun"See full answer