Introduction

In this blog post, we'll share the most commonly asked coding interview questions at ServiceNow. 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: 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

Problem #2: Move Zeroes

Given an integer array nums, move all 0's to the end of it while maintaining the relative order of the non-zero elements. Note that you must do this in-place without making a copy of the array. Example 1: Input: nums = [0,1,0,3,12] Output: [1,3,12,0,0] Example 2: Input: nums = [0] Output: [0] Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 104 -231 <= nums[i] <= 231 - 1 Follow up: Could you minimize the total number of operations done?

Topics: Array, Two Pointers

Problem #3: LRU Cache

Design a data structure that follows the constraints of a Least Recently Used (LRU) cache. Implement the LRUCache class: LRUCache(int capacity) Initialize the LRU cache with positive size capacity. int get(int key) Return the value of the key if the key exists, otherwise return -1. void put(int key, int value) Update the value of the key if the key exists. Otherwise, add the key-value pair to the cache. If the number of keys exceeds the capacity from this operation, evict the least recently used key. The functions get and put must each run in O(1) average time complexity. Example 1: Input ["LRUCache", "put", "put", "get", "put", "get", "put", "get", "get", "get"] [[2], [1, 1], [2, 2], [1], [3, 3], [2], [4, 4], [1], [3], [4]] Output [null, null, null, 1, null, -1, null, -1, 3, 4] Explanation LRUCache lRUCache = new LRUCache(2); lRUCache.put(1, 1); // cache is {1=1} lRUCache.put(2, 2); // cache is {1=1, 2=2} lRUCache.get(1); // return 1 lRUCache.put(3, 3); // LRU key was 2, evicts key 2, cache is {1=1, 3=3} lRUCache.get(2); // returns -1 (not found) lRUCache.put(4, 4); // LRU key was 1, evicts key 1, cache is {4=4, 3=3} lRUCache.get(1); // return -1 (not found) lRUCache.get(3); // return 3 lRUCache.get(4); // return 4 Constraints: 1 <= capacity <= 3000 0 <= key <= 104 0 <= value <= 105 At most 2 * 105 calls will be made to get and put.

Topics: Hash Table, Linked List, Design, Doubly-Linked List

Problem #4: 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 #5: Sliding Window Maximum

You are given an array of integers nums, there is a sliding window of size k which is moving from the very left of the array to the very right. You can only see the k numbers in the window. Each time the sliding window moves right by one position. Return the max sliding window. Example 1: Input: nums = [1,3,-1,-3,5,3,6,7], k = 3 Output: [3,3,5,5,6,7] Explanation: Window position Max --------------- ----- [1 3 -1] -3 5 3 6 7 3 1 [3 -1 -3] 5 3 6 7 3 1 3 [-1 -3 5] 3 6 7 5 1 3 -1 [-3 5 3] 6 7 5 1 3 -1 -3 [5 3 6] 7 6 1 3 -1 -3 5 [3 6 7] 7 Example 2: Input: nums = [1], k = 1 Output: [1] Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 105 -104 <= nums[i] <= 104 1 <= k <= nums.length

Topics: Array, Queue, Sliding Window, Heap (Priority Queue), Monotonic Queue

Problem #7: 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 #8: 4Sum

Given an array nums of n integers, return an array of all the unique quadruplets [nums[a], nums[b], nums[c], nums[d]] such that: 0 <= a, b, c, d < n a, b, c, and d are distinct. nums[a] + nums[b] + nums[c] + nums[d] == target You may return the answer in any order. Example 1: Input: nums = [1,0,-1,0,-2,2], target = 0 Output: [[-2,-1,1,2],[-2,0,0,2],[-1,0,0,1]] Example 2: Input: nums = [2,2,2,2,2], target = 8 Output: [[2,2,2,2]] Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 200 -109 <= nums[i] <= 109 -109 <= target <= 109

Topics: Array, Two Pointers, Sorting

Problem #9: First Missing Positive

Given an unsorted integer array nums. Return the smallest positive integer that is not present in nums. You must implement an algorithm that runs in O(n) time and uses O(1) auxiliary space. Example 1: Input: nums = [1,2,0] Output: 3 Explanation: The numbers in the range [1,2] are all in the array. Example 2: Input: nums = [3,4,-1,1] Output: 2 Explanation: 1 is in the array but 2 is missing. Example 3: Input: nums = [7,8,9,11,12] Output: 1 Explanation: The smallest positive integer 1 is missing. Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 105 -231 <= nums[i] <= 231 - 1

Topics: Array, Hash Table

Problem #10: Binary Tree Right Side View

Given the root of a binary tree, imagine yourself standing on the right side of it, return the values of the nodes you can see ordered from top to bottom. Example 1: Input: root = [1,2,3,null,5,null,4] Output: [1,3,4] Explanation: Example 2: Input: root = [1,2,3,4,null,null,null,5] Output: [1,3,4,5] Explanation: Example 3: Input: root = [1,null,3] Output: [1,3] Example 4: Input: root = [] Output: [] Constraints: The number of nodes in the tree is in the range [0, 100]. -100 <= Node.val <= 100

Topics: Tree, Depth-First Search, Breadth-First Search, Binary Tree