Coding & Algorithms interview questions

Showing 1891–1920 of 3276 results

• Minimize the Largest Value When Picking at Least k Non-Adjacent HousesMedium

  Pick at least k houses from a row without choosing two neighbors, so that the largest amount in any chosen house is as small as possible, and return that minimum. With up to 100,000 houses and values up to one billion, the task tests reasoning about a min-max objective under an adjacency constraint.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Minimum Number of Rooms to Host Overlapping MeetingsMedium

  A scheduling problem that asks for the fewest rooms needed to hold a set of meetings given as half-open time intervals, where a room freed at a given moment can be reused immediately. It tests interval reasoning, correct handling of shared endpoints and duplicates, and an efficient solution for large inputs.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Minimum Ship Capacity to Deliver Ordered Packages Within a Day LimitMedium

  Given package weights in a fixed loading order and a number of days, find the smallest ship capacity that delivers every package within that many days, carrying one contiguous run of packages per day. It tests reasoning precisely about feasibility, choosing correct bounds and handling large inputs efficiently.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Minimum total cost to convert one string into another using weighted character rulesMedium

  A string transformation problem: convert a source string into a target string using directed, weighted character replacement rules that may be chained at a position. It tests reasoning about multi-step conversions, choosing the cheapest of duplicate rules, detecting impossible positions, and totals beyond the 32-bit range.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOther
• Most Frequent Substring Under Distinct-Letter and Length LimitsMedium

  Find how often the most frequent eligible substring appears in a lowercase string, where an eligible substring has a length within a given range and no more than a set number of distinct letters. Overlapping occurrences count and inputs reach 100,000 characters, so the task tests efficient substring counting.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Most Frequent Substring Within a Length Range and a Distinct-Letter LimitMedium

  A string coding problem: among all substrings whose length falls in a given range and that use at most a given number of distinct letters, return how many times the most frequent one occurs. It tests handling overlapping occurrences and the distinct-letter limit, counting efficiently on strings of up to 100,000 characters, and returning zero when nothing qualifies.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Parse a Signed Integer in an Arbitrary BaseMedium

  Parse signed integers in bases 2–36 with explicit syntax, negative-boundary handling, pre-arithmetic overflow checks, and deterministic error precedence.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Populate next pointers in a perfect binary treeMedium

  Evaluates proficiency in tree traversal and in-place pointer manipulation, emphasizing the perfect binary tree invariant and space-time trade-offs; category/domain: Coding & Algorithms. It is commonly asked because it tests ability to perform level-wise linking under an O(1) extra-space constraint and operates at the implementation-level of algorithms and data structures.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Print Org Chart by LevelMedium

  This problem tests your ability to model a tree structure from flat parent-child relations and perform a level-order traversal to format hierarchical data.

  MicrosoftData ScientistCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Recover Sorted Digits from Scrambled English Number WordsMedium

  Recover sorted digits from scrambled English number-word letters, including repeats, and analyze why arbitrary customer vocabularies may lose unique recoverability.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Return Top K Open BusinessesHard

  This problem tests your ability to filter data streams and maintain a top-K collection using a priority queue with custom sorting logic.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Return a topological ordering of a graphHard

  This question tests the ability to implement Kahn's algorithm or a DFS-based approach to perform a topological sort while correctly handling cycle detection.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Return the k most frequent values in an array with a deterministic tie ruleMedium

  Return the k values that occur most often in an integer array, ranked by frequency with ties broken by the smaller value. It tests frequency counting, selecting the top k efficiently and producing a deterministic order when several values tie at the cutoff.

  MicrosoftMachine Learning EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Return the k values in a sorted array closest to a target, with smaller-value tiesMedium

  Given a sorted integer list, a count k and a target value, return the k elements closest to the target in ascending order. The problem tests a precise tie rule that favors smaller values, duplicate values, targets outside the array's range, and working efficiently on already sorted input.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOther
• Reverse linked list in fixed-size groupsMedium

  This question evaluates proficiency with singly linked list manipulation, pointer/reference management, in-place group operations, and complexity reasoning including time and constant extra space.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Rotate a 3×3 digit grid by 180°Medium

  This problem tests your ability to perform spatial transformations on a fixed-size 2D structure while maintaining data integrity across a transformation.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Simulate a Throttled Function Wrapper That Keeps Only the Latest Pending CallMedium

  A coding simulation of a throttle wrapper: given a cooldown length and sorted call times, report which calls actually run and when, where calls arriving during a cooldown keep only the latest one pending. It tests precise event ordering, an explicit rule for calls at the exact moment a cooldown ends, and an efficient single pass.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Sizes of 4-Connected Foreground Regions in a Binary Image, in Scan OrderEasy

  Given a binary image stored as a matrix of 0s and 1s, return the size of every region of horizontally or vertically connected foreground pixels, ordered by when each region is first reached in a top-to-bottom, left-to-right scan. It tests grid traversal, connected components, and handling a single region that covers up to a million pixels.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Solve Three Coding Interview ProblemsMedium

  This problem tests your ability to manipulate sorted data, optimize for mathematical properties, and implement efficient data structures for string prefix operations.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Solve Throughput, Rate Limiting, and LFUHard

  This problem tests your ability to design a system with O(1) time complexity for cache operations and time-window-based request tracking.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Solve binary-search knapsack & graph shortest pathMedium

  This question evaluates a candidate's ability to apply algorithmic optimization by using binary search instead of dynamic programming for a knapsack-style selection problem and to construct and compute shortest paths on a weighted graph from custom input.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Solve binary-tree reverse printing and LPSEasy

  This question evaluates proficiency with tree data structures and level-order traversal semantics for reverse level printing, as well as string algorithmic reasoning and dynamic programming concepts for computing the longest palindromic subsequence, categorized under Coding & Algorithms.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Solve budget queries and shortest pathMedium

  This question evaluates algorithmic design and data-structure selection for efficient preprocessing and query answering, along with shortest-path computation and graph representation choices, testing complexity analysis, large-input handling, path reconstruction, and edge-case reasoning in the Coding & Algorithms domain.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Solve cache, grid path, and substring problemsHard

  This problem tests your ability to implement an LRU cache, solve a dynamic programming problem on a grid with constraints, and optimize string searching using the sliding window technique.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Solve four classic algorithm problemsEasy

  This set evaluates proficiency in core algorithms and data structures: tree traversal and order manipulation (zigzag level-order), dynamic programming and subsequence reasoning (longest palindromic subsequence), numeric algorithms and search/approximation (integer square root), and positional numeral systems/base conversion (spreadsheet column to number). These problems are commonly asked to assess algorithmic thinking, complexity analysis, and handling of edge cases in the Coding & Algorithms domain, testing both conceptual understanding of underlying principles and practical application of implementation techniques.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Solve load balancing and perfect pairsMedium

  This question evaluates algorithm design, correctness proof, and complexity analysis skills by combining a contiguous partitioning load‑balancing optimization with a combinatorial/number‑theoretic pair‑counting problem.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Solve power jumps and graph tourHard

  This problem tests your ability to optimize minimal operations using bitwise properties and to determine the existence of a specific graph traversal path.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Solve three scheduling and array problemsMedium

  This multi-part question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving skills across task scheduling with cooldowns, in-place array deduplication, and string rearrangement to avoid adjacent duplicates, highlighting concepts such as frequency counting, scheduling constraints, and two-pointer or in-place techniques within the Coding & Algorithms domain.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Sort Three Categories In PlaceMedium

  This question evaluates proficiency in in-place array manipulation, constant-space algorithms, and linear-time partitioning techniques. Commonly asked in Coding & Algorithms interviews to assess algorithmic efficiency, pointer/index management, and reasoning about invariants, it focuses on practical application of algorithmic concepts rather than purely theoretical understanding.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Stream output until stop token appearsMedium

  This problem tests your ability to process streaming data from a generator while detecting a multi-character stop sequence that may be split across data chunks.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen