Introduction

In this blog post, we'll share the most commonly asked coding interview questions at Nvidia. 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: Special Binary String

Special binary strings are binary strings with the following two properties: The number of 0's is equal to the number of 1's. Every prefix of the binary string has at least as many 1's as 0's. You are given a special binary string s. A move consists of choosing two consecutive, non-empty, special substrings of s, and swapping them. Two strings are consecutive if the last character of the first string is exactly one index before the first character of the second string. Return the lexicographically largest resulting string possible after applying the mentioned operations on the string. Example 1: Input: s = "11011000" Output: "11100100" Explanation: The strings "10" [occuring at s[1]] and "1100" [at s[3]] are swapped. This is the lexicographically largest string possible after some number of swaps. Example 2: Input: s = "10" Output: "10" Constraints: 1 <= s.length <= 50 s[i] is either '0' or '1'. s is a special binary string.

Topics: String, Recursion

Problem #2: 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 #3: Group Anagrams

Given an array of strings strs, group the anagrams together. You can return the answer in any order. Example 1: Input: strs = ["eat","tea","tan","ate","nat","bat"] Output: [["bat"],["nat","tan"],["ate","eat","tea"]] Explanation: There is no string in strs that can be rearranged to form "bat". The strings "nat" and "tan" are anagrams as they can be rearranged to form each other. The strings "ate", "eat", and "tea" are anagrams as they can be rearranged to form each other. Example 2: Input: strs = [""] Output: [[""]] Example 3: Input: strs = ["a"] Output: [["a"]] Constraints: 1 <= strs.length <= 104 0 <= strs[i].length <= 100 strs[i] consists of lowercase English letters.

Topics: Array, Hash Table, String, Sorting

Problem #4: Reverse Bits

Reverse bits of a given 32 bits unsigned integer. Note: Note that in some languages, such as Java, there is no unsigned integer type. In this case, both input and output will be given as a signed integer type. They should not affect your implementation, as the integer's internal binary representation is the same, whether it is signed or unsigned. In Java, the compiler represents the signed integers using 2's complement notation. Therefore, in Example 2 above, the input represents the signed integer -3 and the output represents the signed integer -1073741825. Example 1: Input: n = 00000010100101000001111010011100 Output: 964176192 (00111001011110000010100101000000) Explanation: The input binary string 00000010100101000001111010011100 represents the unsigned integer 43261596, so return 964176192 which its binary representation is 00111001011110000010100101000000. Example 2: Input: n = 11111111111111111111111111111101 Output: 3221225471 (10111111111111111111111111111111) Explanation: The input binary string 11111111111111111111111111111101 represents the unsigned integer 4294967293, so return 3221225471 which its binary representation is 10111111111111111111111111111111. Constraints: The input must be a binary string of length 32 Follow up: If this function is called many times, how would you optimize it?

Topics: Divide and Conquer, Bit Manipulation

Problem #6: Maximize Greatness of an Array

You are given a 0-indexed integer array nums. You are allowed to permute nums into a new array perm of your choosing. We define the greatness of nums be the number of indices 0 <= i < nums.length for which perm[i] > nums[i]. Return the maximum possible greatness you can achieve after permuting nums. Example 1: Input: nums = [1,3,5,2,1,3,1] Output: 4 Explanation: One of the optimal rearrangements is perm = [2,5,1,3,3,1,1]. At indices = 0, 1, 3, and 4, perm[i] > nums[i]. Hence, we return 4. Example 2: Input: nums = [1,2,3,4] Output: 3 Explanation: We can prove the optimal perm is [2,3,4,1]. At indices = 0, 1, and 2, perm[i] > nums[i]. Hence, we return 3. Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 105 0 <= nums[i] <= 109

Topics: Array, Two Pointers, Greedy, Sorting

Problem #7: Rotate List

Given the head of a linked list, rotate the list to the right by k places. Example 1: Input: head = [1,2,3,4,5], k = 2 Output: [4,5,1,2,3] Example 2: Input: head = [0,1,2], k = 4 Output: [2,0,1] Constraints: The number of nodes in the list is in the range [0, 500]. -100 <= Node.val <= 100 0 <= k <= 2 * 109

Topics: Linked List, Two Pointers

Problem #8: Search in Rotated Sorted Array

There is an integer array nums sorted in ascending order (with distinct values). Prior to being passed to your function, nums is possibly rotated at an unknown pivot index k (1 <= k < nums.length) such that the resulting array is [nums[k], nums[k+1], ..., nums[n-1], nums[0], nums[1], ..., nums[k-1]] (0-indexed). For example, [0,1,2,4,5,6,7] might be rotated at pivot index 3 and become [4,5,6,7,0,1,2]. Given the array nums after the possible rotation and an integer target, return the index of target if it is in nums, or -1 if it is not in nums. You must write an algorithm with O(log n) runtime complexity. Example 1: Input: nums = [4,5,6,7,0,1,2], target = 0 Output: 4 Example 2: Input: nums = [4,5,6,7,0,1,2], target = 3 Output: -1 Example 3: Input: nums = [1], target = 0 Output: -1 Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 5000 -104 <= nums[i] <= 104 All values of nums are unique. nums is an ascending array that is possibly rotated. -104 <= target <= 104

Topics: Array, Binary Search

Problem #9: Last Stone Weight

You are given an array of integers stones where stones[i] is the weight of the ith stone. We are playing a game with the stones. On each turn, we choose the heaviest two stones and smash them together. Suppose the heaviest two stones have weights x and y with x <= y. The result of this smash is: If x == y, both stones are destroyed, and If x != y, the stone of weight x is destroyed, and the stone of weight y has new weight y - x. At the end of the game, there is at most one stone left. Return the weight of the last remaining stone. If there are no stones left, return 0. Example 1: Input: stones = [2,7,4,1,8,1] Output: 1 Explanation: We combine 7 and 8 to get 1 so the array converts to [2,4,1,1,1] then, we combine 2 and 4 to get 2 so the array converts to [2,1,1,1] then, we combine 2 and 1 to get 1 so the array converts to [1,1,1] then, we combine 1 and 1 to get 0 so the array converts to [1] then that's the value of the last stone. Example 2: Input: stones = [1] Output: 1 Constraints: 1 <= stones.length <= 30 1 <= stones[i] <= 1000

Topics: Array, Heap (Priority Queue)

Problem #10: Two Sum

Given an array of integers nums and an integer target, return indices of the two numbers such that they add up to target. You may assume that each input would have exactly one solution, and you may not use the same element twice. You can return the answer in any order. Example 1: Input: nums = [2,7,11,15], target = 9 Output: [0,1] Explanation: Because nums[0] + nums[1] == 9, we return [0, 1]. Example 2: Input: nums = [3,2,4], target = 6 Output: [1,2] Example 3: Input: nums = [3,3], target = 6 Output: [0,1] Constraints: 2 <= nums.length <= 104 -109 <= nums[i] <= 109 -109 <= target <= 109 Only one valid answer exists. Follow-up: Can you come up with an algorithm that is less than O(n2) time complexity?

Topics: Array, Hash Table