Top 5 Coinbase Coding Interview Questions from 2025
Introduction
In this blog post, we'll share the most commonly asked coding interview questions at Coinbase. 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 #2: Simple Bank System
You have been tasked with writing a program for a popular bank that will automate all its incoming transactions (transfer, deposit, and withdraw). The bank has n accounts numbered from 1 to n. The initial balance of each account is stored in a 0-indexed integer array balance, with the (i + 1)th account having an initial balance of balance[i]. Execute all the valid transactions. A transaction is valid if: The given account number(s) are between 1 and n, and The amount of money withdrawn or transferred from is less than or equal to the balance of the account. Implement the Bank class: Bank(long[] balance) Initializes the object with the 0-indexed integer array balance. boolean transfer(int account1, int account2, long money) Transfers money dollars from the account numbered account1 to the account numbered account2. Return true if the transaction was successful, false otherwise. boolean deposit(int account, long money) Deposit money dollars into the account numbered account. Return true if the transaction was successful, false otherwise. boolean withdraw(int account, long money) Withdraw money dollars from the account numbered account. Return true if the transaction was successful, false otherwise. Example 1: Input ["Bank", "withdraw", "transfer", "deposit", "transfer", "withdraw"] [[[10, 100, 20, 50, 30]], [3, 10], [5, 1, 20], [5, 20], [3, 4, 15], [10, 50]] Output [null, true, true, true, false, false] Explanation Bank bank = new Bank([10, 100, 20, 50, 30]); bank.withdraw(3, 10); // return true, account 3 has a balance of $20, so it is valid to withdraw $10. // Account 3 has $20 - $10 = $10. bank.transfer(5, 1, 20); // return true, account 5 has a balance of $30, so it is valid to transfer $20. // Account 5 has $30 - $20 = $10, and account 1 has $10 + $20 = $30. bank.deposit(5, 20); // return true, it is valid to deposit $20 to account 5. // Account 5 has $10 + $20 = $30. bank.transfer(3, 4, 15); // return false, the current balance of account 3 is $10, // so it is invalid to transfer $15 from it. bank.withdraw(10, 50); // return false, it is invalid because account 10 does not exist. Constraints: n == balance.length 1 <= n, account, account1, account2 <= 105 0 <= balance[i], money <= 1012 At most 104 calls will be made to each function transfer, deposit, withdraw.
Topics: Array, Hash Table, Design, Simulation
Problem #3: Time Based Key-Value Store
Design a time-based key-value data structure that can store multiple values for the same key at different time stamps and retrieve the key's value at a certain timestamp. Implement the TimeMap class: TimeMap() Initializes the object of the data structure. void set(String key, String value, int timestamp) Stores the key key with the value value at the given time timestamp. String get(String key, int timestamp) Returns a value such that set was called previously, with timestamp_prev <= timestamp. If there are multiple such values, it returns the value associated with the largest timestamp_prev. If there are no values, it returns "". Example 1: Input ["TimeMap", "set", "get", "get", "set", "get", "get"] [[], ["foo", "bar", 1], ["foo", 1], ["foo", 3], ["foo", "bar2", 4], ["foo", 4], ["foo", 5]] Output [null, null, "bar", "bar", null, "bar2", "bar2"] Explanation TimeMap timeMap = new TimeMap(); timeMap.set("foo", "bar", 1); // store the key "foo" and value "bar" along with timestamp = 1. timeMap.get("foo", 1); // return "bar" timeMap.get("foo", 3); // return "bar", since there is no value corresponding to foo at timestamp 3 and timestamp 2, then the only value is at timestamp 1 is "bar". timeMap.set("foo", "bar2", 4); // store the key "foo" and value "bar2" along with timestamp = 4. timeMap.get("foo", 4); // return "bar2" timeMap.get("foo", 5); // return "bar2" Constraints: 1 <= key.length, value.length <= 100 key and value consist of lowercase English letters and digits. 1 <= timestamp <= 107 All the timestamps timestamp of set are strictly increasing. At most 2 * 105 calls will be made to set and get.
Topics: Hash Table, String, Binary Search, Design
Problem #4: Find the Length of the Longest Common Prefix
You are given two arrays with positive integers arr1 and arr2. A prefix of a positive integer is an integer formed by one or more of its digits, starting from its leftmost digit. For example, 123 is a prefix of the integer 12345, while 234 is not. A common prefix of two integers a and b is an integer c, such that c is a prefix of both a and b. For example, 5655359 and 56554 have common prefixes 565 and 5655 while 1223 and 43456 do not have a common prefix. You need to find the length of the longest common prefix between all pairs of integers (x, y) such that x belongs to arr1 and y belongs to arr2. Return the length of the longest common prefix among all pairs. If no common prefix exists among them, return 0. Example 1: Input: arr1 = [1,10,100], arr2 = [1000] Output: 3 Explanation: There are 3 pairs (arr1[i], arr2[j]): - The longest common prefix of (1, 1000) is 1. - The longest common prefix of (10, 1000) is 10. - The longest common prefix of (100, 1000) is 100. The longest common prefix is 100 with a length of 3. Example 2: Input: arr1 = [1,2,3], arr2 = [4,4,4] Output: 0 Explanation: There exists no common prefix for any pair (arr1[i], arr2[j]), hence we return 0. Note that common prefixes between elements of the same array do not count. Constraints: 1 <= arr1.length, arr2.length <= 5 * 104 1 <= arr1[i], arr2[i] <= 108
Topics: Array, Hash Table, String, Trie
Problem #5: Random Pick with Weight
You are given a 0-indexed array of positive integers w where w[i] describes the weight of the ith index. You need to implement the function pickIndex(), which randomly picks an index in the range [0, w.length - 1] (inclusive) and returns it. The probability of picking an index i is w[i] / sum(w). For example, if w = [1, 3], the probability of picking index 0 is 1 / (1 + 3) = 0.25 (i.e., 25%), and the probability of picking index 1 is 3 / (1 + 3) = 0.75 (i.e., 75%). Example 1: Input ["Solution","pickIndex"] [[[1]],[]] Output [null,0] Explanation Solution solution = new Solution([1]); solution.pickIndex(); // return 0. The only option is to return 0 since there is only one element in w. Example 2: Input ["Solution","pickIndex","pickIndex","pickIndex","pickIndex","pickIndex"] [[[1,3]],[],[],[],[],[]] Output [null,1,1,1,1,0] Explanation Solution solution = new Solution([1, 3]); solution.pickIndex(); // return 1. It is returning the second element (index = 1) that has a probability of 3/4. solution.pickIndex(); // return 1 solution.pickIndex(); // return 1 solution.pickIndex(); // return 1 solution.pickIndex(); // return 0. It is returning the first element (index = 0) that has a probability of 1/4. Since this is a randomization problem, multiple answers are allowed. All of the following outputs can be considered correct: [null,1,1,1,1,0] [null,1,1,1,1,1] [null,1,1,1,0,0] [null,1,1,1,0,1] [null,1,0,1,0,0] ...... and so on. Constraints: 1 <= w.length <= 104 1 <= w[i] <= 105 pickIndex will be called at most 104 times.
Topics: Array, Math, Binary Search, Prefix Sum, Randomized