Introduction

In this blog post, we'll share the most commonly asked coding interview questions at Goldman Sachs. If you don't have months to study for your interviews, you can use AI tools like Chatmagic to generate solutions quickly and efficiently - helping you pass the interviews and get the job offer!

Problem #1: Trapping Rain Water

Given n non-negative integers representing an elevation map where the width of each bar is 1, compute how much water it can trap after raining. Example 1: Input: height = [0,1,0,2,1,0,1,3,2,1,2,1] Output: 6 Explanation: The above elevation map (black section) is represented by array [0,1,0,2,1,0,1,3,2,1,2,1]. In this case, 6 units of rain water (blue section) are being trapped. Example 2: Input: height = [4,2,0,3,2,5] Output: 9 Constraints: n == height.length 1 <= n <= 2 * 104 0 <= height[i] <= 105

Topics: Array, Two Pointers, Dynamic Programming, Stack, Monotonic Stack

Problem #3: Median of Two Sorted Arrays

Given two sorted arrays nums1 and nums2 of size m and n respectively, return the median of the two sorted arrays. The overall run time complexity should be O(log (m+n)). Example 1: Input: nums1 = [1,3], nums2 = [2] Output: 2.00000 Explanation: merged array = [1,2,3] and median is 2. Example 2: Input: nums1 = [1,2], nums2 = [3,4] Output: 2.50000 Explanation: merged array = [1,2,3,4] and median is (2 + 3) / 2 = 2.5. Constraints: nums1.length == m nums2.length == n 0 <= m <= 1000 0 <= n <= 1000 1 <= m + n <= 2000 -106 <= nums1[i], nums2[i] <= 106

Topics: Array, Binary Search, Divide and Conquer

Problem #4: First Unique Character in a String

Given a string s, find the first non-repeating character in it and return its index. If it does not exist, return -1. Example 1: Input: s = "leetcode" Output: 0 Explanation: The character 'l' at index 0 is the first character that does not occur at any other index. Example 2: Input: s = "loveleetcode" Output: 2 Example 3: Input: s = "aabb" Output: -1 Constraints: 1 <= s.length <= 105 s consists of only lowercase English letters.

Topics: Hash Table, String, Queue, Counting

Problem #5: Fraction to Recurring Decimal

Given two integers representing the numerator and denominator of a fraction, return the fraction in string format. If the fractional part is repeating, enclose the repeating part in parentheses. If multiple answers are possible, return any of them. It is guaranteed that the length of the answer string is less than 104 for all the given inputs. Example 1: Input: numerator = 1, denominator = 2 Output: "0.5" Example 2: Input: numerator = 2, denominator = 1 Output: "2" Example 3: Input: numerator = 4, denominator = 333 Output: "0.(012)" Constraints: -231 <= numerator, denominator <= 231 - 1 denominator != 0

Topics: Hash Table, Math, String

Problem #6: Robot Bounded In Circle

On an infinite plane, a robot initially stands at (0, 0) and faces north. Note that: The north direction is the positive direction of the y-axis. The south direction is the negative direction of the y-axis. The east direction is the positive direction of the x-axis. The west direction is the negative direction of the x-axis. The robot can receive one of three instructions: "G": go straight 1 unit. "L": turn 90 degrees to the left (i.e., anti-clockwise direction). "R": turn 90 degrees to the right (i.e., clockwise direction). The robot performs the instructions given in order, and repeats them forever. Return true if and only if there exists a circle in the plane such that the robot never leaves the circle. Example 1: Input: instructions = "GGLLGG" Output: true Explanation: The robot is initially at (0, 0) facing the north direction. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 1). Direction: North. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 2). Direction: North. "L": turn 90 degrees anti-clockwise. Position: (0, 2). Direction: West. "L": turn 90 degrees anti-clockwise. Position: (0, 2). Direction: South. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 1). Direction: South. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 0). Direction: South. Repeating the instructions, the robot goes into the cycle: (0, 0) --> (0, 1) --> (0, 2) --> (0, 1) --> (0, 0). Based on that, we return true. Example 2: Input: instructions = "GG" Output: false Explanation: The robot is initially at (0, 0) facing the north direction. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 1). Direction: North. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 2). Direction: North. Repeating the instructions, keeps advancing in the north direction and does not go into cycles. Based on that, we return false. Example 3: Input: instructions = "GL" Output: true Explanation: The robot is initially at (0, 0) facing the north direction. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 1). Direction: North. "L": turn 90 degrees anti-clockwise. Position: (0, 1). Direction: West. "G": move one step. Position: (-1, 1). Direction: West. "L": turn 90 degrees anti-clockwise. Position: (-1, 1). Direction: South. "G": move one step. Position: (-1, 0). Direction: South. "L": turn 90 degrees anti-clockwise. Position: (-1, 0). Direction: East. "G": move one step. Position: (0, 0). Direction: East. "L": turn 90 degrees anti-clockwise. Position: (0, 0). Direction: North. Repeating the instructions, the robot goes into the cycle: (0, 0) --> (0, 1) --> (-1, 1) --> (-1, 0) --> (0, 0). Based on that, we return true. Constraints: 1 <= instructions.length <= 100 instructions[i] is 'G', 'L' or, 'R'.

Topics: Math, String, Simulation

Problem #8: Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

Given a string s, find the length of the longest substring without duplicate characters. Example 1: Input: s = "abcabcbb" Output: 3 Explanation: The answer is "abc", with the length of 3. Example 2: Input: s = "bbbbb" Output: 1 Explanation: The answer is "b", with the length of 1. Example 3: Input: s = "pwwkew" Output: 3 Explanation: The answer is "wke", with the length of 3. Notice that the answer must be a substring, "pwke" is a subsequence and not a substring. Constraints: 0 <= s.length <= 5 * 104 s consists of English letters, digits, symbols and spaces.

Topics: Hash Table, String, Sliding Window

Problem #9: Decode Ways

You have intercepted a secret message encoded as a string of numbers. The message is decoded via the following mapping: "1" -> 'A' "2" -> 'B' ... "25" -> 'Y' "26" -> 'Z' However, while decoding the message, you realize that there are many different ways you can decode the message because some codes are contained in other codes ("2" and "5" vs "25"). For example, "11106" can be decoded into: "AAJF" with the grouping (1, 1, 10, 6) "KJF" with the grouping (11, 10, 6) The grouping (1, 11, 06) is invalid because "06" is not a valid code (only "6" is valid). Note: there may be strings that are impossible to decode. Given a string s containing only digits, return the number of ways to decode it. If the entire string cannot be decoded in any valid way, return 0. The test cases are generated so that the answer fits in a 32-bit integer. Example 1: Input: s = "12" Output: 2 Explanation: "12" could be decoded as "AB" (1 2) or "L" (12). Example 2: Input: s = "226" Output: 3 Explanation: "226" could be decoded as "BZ" (2 26), "VF" (22 6), or "BBF" (2 2 6). Example 3: Input: s = "06" Output: 0 Explanation: "06" cannot be mapped to "F" because of the leading zero ("6" is different from "06"). In this case, the string is not a valid encoding, so return 0. Constraints: 1 <= s.length <= 100 s contains only digits and may contain leading zero(s).

Topics: String, Dynamic Programming

Problem #10: String Compression

Given an array of characters chars, compress it using the following algorithm: Begin with an empty string s. For each group of consecutive repeating characters in chars: If the group's length is 1, append the character to s. Otherwise, append the character followed by the group's length. The compressed string s should not be returned separately, but instead, be stored in the input character array chars. Note that group lengths that are 10 or longer will be split into multiple characters in chars. After you are done modifying the input array, return the new length of the array. You must write an algorithm that uses only constant extra space. Example 1: Input: chars = ["a","a","b","b","c","c","c"] Output: Return 6, and the first 6 characters of the input array should be: ["a","2","b","2","c","3"] Explanation: The groups are "aa", "bb", and "ccc". This compresses to "a2b2c3". Example 2: Input: chars = ["a"] Output: Return 1, and the first character of the input array should be: ["a"] Explanation: The only group is "a", which remains uncompressed since it's a single character. Example 3: Input: chars = ["a","b","b","b","b","b","b","b","b","b","b","b","b"] Output: Return 4, and the first 4 characters of the input array should be: ["a","b","1","2"]. Explanation: The groups are "a" and "bbbbbbbbbbbb". This compresses to "ab12". Constraints: 1 <= chars.length <= 2000 chars[i] is a lowercase English letter, uppercase English letter, digit, or symbol.

Topics: Two Pointers, String