A "Debugging" Round That Was Really a Key-Value Store Without a Dictionary

Implement a key value store without a dictionary or set. I was told that this round was going to be a debugging session. The interviewer gave the question above. Mistakes that I made: I did not start with a class definition. The interviewer pointed it out, so I eventually started with a class definition. The interviewer kept asking me about cache collision. I raised an exception for the cache col…

Shared by a candidate · reported Sep 2026. Interview formats change; use it as a guide, not a script.