Implement tag matcher and filesystem
HarveyBackend Engineer · OnsiteLast updated
This combined prompt evaluates string-processing and parsing skills for tag matching and design/implementation skills for an in-memory file system, measuring competencies in exact whole-word matching, case normalization, punctuation and duplicate handling, path parsing, hierarchical data structures, and file API behaviors.
This interview reportedly included two coding problems:
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Tag matching in text Given a sentence and a list of tags or keywords, return the tags that appear in the sentence as whole-word matches. Matching may be treated as case-insensitive, but partial-word matches do not count. For example, if the sentence contains
blueprint, the tagbluemust not be considered a match. Be prepared to clarify how punctuation, duplicates, and output ordering should be handled. -
In-memory file system Design and implement an in-memory file system that supports common operations such as:
- creating directories,
- listing directory contents,
- writing file contents,
- reading file contents.
Be prepared to discuss path parsing, internal data structures, and edge cases such as nested directories, creating missing parents, and appending to an existing file.
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