Software Engineer, Product

Meta

Given a string containing alphanumeric and special characters, determine if it's a palindrome, ignoring special characters and case. Can you do this in-place (without using extra space)? For example, 12@#.Race@#car is a palindrome. How would you approach this?

Meta

Let's design a system to efficiently manage meeting room bookings for a large company. Consider the following: Scalability: The system should handle a large number of meeting rooms and employees. Concurrency: Multiple users should be able to book rooms simultaneously without conflicts. Features: Room availability search based on time, date, and number of attendees. Recurring meeting support. Integration with employee calendars (e.g., Google Calendar, Outlook). Conflict detection and resolution. Reporting and analytics (e.g., room utilization). Example: Imagine a company with 100 meeting rooms and 5000 employees. A user wants to book a room for a daily stand-up meeting with 10 attendees, recurring every weekday for the next month. How would your system handle this request, ensuring no double bookings and updating the user's calendar? Specifically, discuss the system architecture, data models, key algorithms, and potential bottlenecks. How would you address these bottlenecks to ensure the system remains responsive and reliable?

Meta

Describe a time you had to work in an ambiguous environment. What was the situation, what actions did you take, and what was the result? Be specific and provide details about the ambiguity you faced. For example: Lack of Clear Requirements: Describe a project where the initial requirements were poorly defined or constantly changing. How did you navigate the uncertainty and ensure the project moved forward? Conflicting Information: Share an experience where you received conflicting information from different stakeholders. How did you reconcile these discrepancies and make informed decisions? Unclear Goals: Tell me about a time when the overall goals of a project or task were not well-defined. How did you work to clarify the objectives and achieve a successful outcome? Limited Resources: Describe a situation where you had to work with limited resources (time, budget, personnel). How did you prioritize your efforts and make the most of what you had available? New Technology or Domain: Share an experience where you had to work with a new technology or in a domain where you had limited prior experience. How did you quickly learn and adapt to the unfamiliar environment?