Sr. Software Engineer, Core Services - Apple Services Engineering

Apple

Given the head of a singly linked list, group all the nodes with odd indices together followed by the nodes with even indices, and return the reordered list. The first node is considered odd, and the second node is even, and so on. Note that the relative order inside both the even and odd groups should remain as it was in the input. You must solve the problem in O(1) extra space complexity and O(n) time complexity. For example: Input: head = [1,2,3,4,5] Output: [1,3,5,2,4] Input: head = [2,1,3,5,6,4,7] Output: [2,3,6,7,1,5,4]

Apple

Let's design a system for URL shortening, like TinyURL. Assume a large-scale service. Please consider the following aspects in your design: Functional Requirements: The system should generate shorter URLs (a.k.a. short links) given longer URLs. Users should be able to navigate to the original URL by entering the short link in their browser. The system should be highly available. Non-Functional Requirements: The system should have low latency for both URL shortening and redirection. Short links should be relatively short (e.g., 6-8 characters). The system should be able to handle a large number of URL shortening and redirection requests. Capacity Estimation: Assume 100 million URLs are shortened per day. Assume 1 billion URL redirections per day. Estimate storage requirements for 5 years. Design Considerations: How would you generate unique short links? What data structures and databases would you use to store the URL mappings? How would you handle collisions when generating short links? How would you optimize for low latency redirection? How would you scale the system to handle the expected traffic? Walk me through your design, explaining your choices and the trade-offs you considered. Provide diagrams where necessary to illustrate the architecture.

Apple

Let's say a developer doesn't agree that a reported bug is actually a bug. How would you handle this situation? Be specific. For example, imagine you're a QA engineer, and you find that a button on a webpage is slightly misaligned in a specific browser. You log this as a bug, but the front-end developer says it's 'within acceptable tolerances' and refuses to fix it. Or, perhaps a back-end developer claims that a specific edge-case error is so rare it's not worth the effort to address, even though you believe it violates the product's stated reliability goals. What steps would you take to resolve the disagreement while maintaining a positive working relationship and ensuring product quality? Consider the different approaches you could take based on the severity and impact of the potential bug.