Introduction

In this blog post, we'll share the most commonly asked coding interview questions at Squarepoint Capital. 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: Search Suggestions System

You are given an array of strings products and a string searchWord. Design a system that suggests at most three product names from products after each character of searchWord is typed. Suggested products should have common prefix with searchWord. If there are more than three products with a common prefix return the three lexicographically minimums products. Return a list of lists of the suggested products after each character of searchWord is typed. Example 1: Input: products = ["mobile","mouse","moneypot","monitor","mousepad"], searchWord = "mouse" Output: [["mobile","moneypot","monitor"],["mobile","moneypot","monitor"],["mouse","mousepad"],["mouse","mousepad"],["mouse","mousepad"]] Explanation: products sorted lexicographically = ["mobile","moneypot","monitor","mouse","mousepad"]. After typing m and mo all products match and we show user ["mobile","moneypot","monitor"]. After typing mou, mous and mouse the system suggests ["mouse","mousepad"]. Example 2: Input: products = ["havana"], searchWord = "havana" Output: [["havana"],["havana"],["havana"],["havana"],["havana"],["havana"]] Explanation: The only word "havana" will be always suggested while typing the search word. Constraints: 1 <= products.length <= 1000 1 <= products[i].length <= 3000 1 <= sum(products[i].length) <= 2 * 104 All the strings of products are unique. products[i] consists of lowercase English letters. 1 <= searchWord.length <= 1000 searchWord consists of lowercase English letters.

Topics: Array, String, Binary Search, Trie, Sorting, Heap (Priority Queue)

Problem #2: Subarray Product Less Than K

Given an array of integers nums and an integer k, return the number of contiguous subarrays where the product of all the elements in the subarray is strictly less than k. Example 1: Input: nums = [10,5,2,6], k = 100 Output: 8 Explanation: The 8 subarrays that have product less than 100 are: [10], [5], [2], [6], [10, 5], [5, 2], [2, 6], [5, 2, 6] Note that [10, 5, 2] is not included as the product of 100 is not strictly less than k. Example 2: Input: nums = [1,2,3], k = 0 Output: 0 Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 3 * 104 1 <= nums[i] <= 1000 0 <= k <= 106

Topics: Array, Binary Search, Sliding Window, Prefix Sum

Problem #3: Longest Increasing Subsequence

Given an integer array nums, return the length of the longest strictly increasing subsequence. Example 1: Input: nums = [10,9,2,5,3,7,101,18] Output: 4 Explanation: The longest increasing subsequence is [2,3,7,101], therefore the length is 4. Example 2: Input: nums = [0,1,0,3,2,3] Output: 4 Example 3: Input: nums = [7,7,7,7,7,7,7] Output: 1 Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 2500 -104 <= nums[i] <= 104 Follow up: Can you come up with an algorithm that runs in O(n log(n)) time complexity?

Topics: Array, Binary Search, Dynamic Programming

Problem #4: Maximum Subarray

Given an integer array nums, find the subarray with the largest sum, and return its sum. Example 1: Input: nums = [-2,1,-3,4,-1,2,1,-5,4] Output: 6 Explanation: The subarray [4,-1,2,1] has the largest sum 6. Example 2: Input: nums = [1] Output: 1 Explanation: The subarray [1] has the largest sum 1. Example 3: Input: nums = [5,4,-1,7,8] Output: 23 Explanation: The subarray [5,4,-1,7,8] has the largest sum 23. Constraints: 1 <= nums.length <= 105 -104 <= nums[i] <= 104 Follow up: If you have figured out the O(n) solution, try coding another solution using the divide and conquer approach, which is more subtle.

Topics: Array, Divide and Conquer, Dynamic Programming

Problem #5: 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