Katkat

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Interview Questions

Practice 9403 coding, system design and machine learning questions from 546 companies, sorted by role, topic and interview round. Every question has step-by-step hints, a code runner that supports 8 languages and an AI mentor; members also get the full solution walkthrough.

9403
Questions
546
Companies
11
Topics
8
Languages

Showing 6391–6420 of 9403 results

  • OpenAIHardMachine Learning Engineer
    Improve Training With Noisy Annotators

    This question evaluates a candidate's ability to handle label noise by estimating annotator reliability and applying data-cleaning, relabeling, or reweighting methods while measuring model performance and understanding classification metrics.

    Machine LearningOnsite
  • OpenAIHardMachine Learning Engineer
    Improve classifier with noisy multi-annotator labels

    This question evaluates a candidate's ability to analyze noisy multi-annotator labels, design label-aggregation and dataset-splitting strategies, and choose modeling and evaluation approaches for binary text classification.

    Machine LearningTechnical Screen
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    In-Memory Key-Value Store with Crash Recovery from a Log and Concurrent Access

    Implement an in-memory key-value store, make it recover from a log file after a crash, including a half-written final record, and make it correct and fast under many concurrent threads. It tests write-ahead logging, crash consistency, compaction, and lock design with group commit.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Indexed Vector as a Linked List with Checkpoints Every k Nodes

    Implement an indexed dynamic sequence of strings, in the sense of an array list, that supports inserting at a position and reading by position. Starting from a plain singly linked list, build a linked list with a checkpoint every k nodes so reads cost O(k), and keep the checkpoints correct as insertions shift positions.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Infection Spread Simulation with Death Threshold

    Implement a cellular automaton simulating epidemic spread on a 2D grid with simultaneous infection and mortality transitions until convergence.

    Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screenmatrixsimulationbreadth-first-search
  • OpenAIMediumMachine Learning Engineer
    Infer Generic Return Types

    Implement a toy type-inference engine that unifies generic parameter types with concrete argument types and substitutes resolved type variables to determine the return type.

    Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiterecursiontreetype-systems
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Key-Value Store Persistence: Length-Prefixed Bytes, Size-Capped Chunks, Thread Safety

    A three-part key-value store exercise: serialize keys, values and their lengths into bytes and persist them on shutdown, split the saved data into chunks of a given maximum size, and discuss making the existing code safe for multithreaded use. It tests byte-level encoding, correct restore and concurrency reasoning.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Lab Robot Job Dispatcher with Backoff, Quarantine and Prereqs

    Implement an in-memory job dispatcher where failed jobs wait out a per-job backoff, keep their original queue position, and get quarantined after repeated failures, then add prerequisite jobs with cascading quarantine. Tests state modeling, dual-heap scheduling, and online topological ordering.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenheapschedulingstate-machine
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Lead Through Technical Difficulty and Project Conflict

    This question evaluates your ability to provide engineering leadership through severe technical uncertainty, resolve architectural or project disagreements constructively, and deliver measurable impact under high expectations.

    Behavioral & LeadershipHR ScreenLeadershipConflict ResolutionTrade-off Analysis
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Lease-Based Job Queue for Flaky Render Workers

    Build an in-process job queue that hands out time-limited leases. A job is never lost when a worker crashes, hangs or fails, and jobs that always fail are dead-lettered after a retry limit. Tests state machines, fencing tokens, thread safety and clock-injected tests.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenconcurrencyqueuesfault-tolerance
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Leftmost-Fit Memory Allocator: Allocate Consecutive Units and Free by Owner

    Simulate a memory allocator over n units: each allocation takes the leftmost run of consecutive free units for an owner, and each free releases all of that owner's units. Return the result of every operation. It tests interval bookkeeping and logarithmic-time search for free runs at up to 100,000 operations.

    Coding & AlgorithmsOnsite
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Leftmost-Fit Theater Row Booking With Bulk Cancellation by Group

    Simulate booking a single theater row of n seats, where each booking takes the leftmost block of consecutive free seats for a group and a cancellation releases every seat that group currently holds anywhere in the row. Tests augmented-interval bookkeeping and logarithmic-time search for the best free run.

    Coding & AlgorithmsOnsitesegment-treeintervalssimulation
  • OpenAIMediumMachine Learning Engineer
    Maintain Entropy for a Streaming Distribution

    Maintain empirical Shannon entropy after every categorical observation without rescanning all categories. The discussion should cover arbitrary identifiers, first-item behavior, exact counts, floating-point drift, concurrency, deletions, sliding windows, and merging summaries from separate stream partitions.

    Statistics & MathOnsite
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Manage GPU Credits with Expiration

    This question evaluates data-structure design and algorithmic reasoning for time-based resource accounting, including handling expiring credits and out-of-order operations while maintaining efficient (logarithmic) performance constraints.

    Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
  • OpenAIHardData Scientist
    Measure free-month promotion impact

    This question tests the ability to design an experiment for a subscription product, focusing on causal inference, handling right-censoring in cohort data, and calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) for a promotional offer.

    Analytics & ExperimentationTechnical ScreenCausal InferenceExperiment DesignROI
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Merge overlapping intervals

    This question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving skills focused on interval manipulation, sorting and merging logic, and time/space complexity analysis within the Coding & Algorithms domain, emphasizing practical application.

    Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Microorganism Eating Simulation: Largest Survivor After Left-to-Right Rounds

    Simulate a row of microorganisms in which each one may eat a strictly smaller neighbor from a different family, with rounds resolved from left to right, and report the family and size of the largest survivor at equilibrium. It tests precise rule-following, list mutation during iteration, and careful per-round bookkeeping.

    Coding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Minimize deaths in spreading plant infection

    This problem tests your ability to simulate a state-based grid propagation and optimize intervention timing using either greedy or dynamic programming approaches.

    Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenSimulationBFSGrid
  • OpenAIMediumMachine Learning Engineer
    Model Infection, Immunity, Delayed Death, and Burn Interventions on a Grid

    Design and implement a discrete grid simulation modeling a five-stage disease progression with state countdowns, immunity, delayed mortality, and external burn interventions.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screensimulationmatrixstate-machine
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Model particle hits on a screen

    This question evaluates geometric reasoning and probability theory skills, specifically transformation of random variables and derivation of CDF/PDF from angular sampling, together with practical competence in Monte Carlo simulation and interpretation of numerical and visualization artifacts; domain: Software Engineering Fundamentals.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Monitor Devices Over an Unreliable Network

    Design an edge-to-cloud device monitoring system that accurately tracks device health and liveness across flaky, high-latency networks without falsely reporting absolute state.

    System DesignOnsitesystem-designdistributed-systemsiot
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Optimize C++ Performance with Provided Concurrency

    This question evaluates a developer's skills in C++ performance engineering and concurrent systems, covering profiling, bottleneck identification (e.g., cache locality and lock contention), and code-level performance reasoning to improve throughput and latency.

    Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Order Recipe Prep Steps Into the Smallest Valid Sequence

    Return a deterministic, lexicographically smallest valid ordering of named prep steps with dependency constraints, correctly including steps with no prerequisites and steps unconnected to any dependency.

    Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screentopological-sortgraphsheap
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Order Tasks with Dependencies Using a Deterministic Topological Sort

    Tests deterministic topological sorting of a directed acyclic graph using Kahn's algorithm and a priority queue to guarantee lexicographical tie-breaking.

    Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screengraphtopological-sortheap
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Parse and build binary data in Python

    This question evaluates proficiency in binary data handling and serialization/deserialization in Python, including little-endian integer encoding, length-prefixed payloads, robust error handling for short reads and invalid lengths, and testability and performance considerations.

    Data Manipulation (SQL/Python)Technical Screen
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Plant Infection Grid Simulation: Days to Stabilize, Immune Plants, Expiring Immunity

    A progressive grid simulation: infection spreads daily between adjacent plants, and you compute how many days the garden takes to stabilize, then add permanently immune plants and immunity that expires after a countdown. It tests multi-source breadth-first search, Dijkstra-style waiting times and precise day counting.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Prevent Duplicate Request Processing

    This System Design question evaluates understanding of idempotency, request deduplication, client- and server-side reliability mechanisms, and concurrency control in distributed systems.

    System DesignHR Screen
  • OpenAIHardSoftware Engineer
    Print Shop Job Queue: Retries, a Poison Queue and Job Prerequisites

    Implement an in-memory job queue for a print shop where workers reserve, complete, or fail jobs, failed jobs retry up to a limit before landing in a poison queue, and a second part adds job prerequisites with cascading failure.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenqueuesstate-machinesretries
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Project Deep Dive: Proving Technical Depth and Cross-Team Alignment

    A behavioral project deep-dive question in which you present a past project while the interviewer asks how you aligned with other functional teams and with engineers on your own team, and repeatedly presses on where the technical depth lies. It tests structured storytelling, clear ownership, evidence-backed decisions and composure under challenge.

    Behavioral & LeadershipOnsite
  • OpenAIMediumSoftware Engineer
    Reactive Budget Notebook With Live Formulas and Cycle Rejection

    Build a small reactive calculator where named variables hold integers or formulas that reference other variables, values stay correct as inputs change, and any definition that would create a circular dependency is rejected. Tests graph modeling, cache invalidation, cycle detection, and writing tests live.

    Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsitedependency-graphcycle-detectioncaching