Software Engineer, Systems

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Let's talk about strings. Suppose you're given two strings, text and pattern. Your task is to implement a function that efficiently determines if the pattern is a subsequence of the text. A subsequence is a sequence that can be derived from another sequence by deleting some or no elements without changing the order of the remaining elements. For example, ace is a subsequence of abcde, but aec is not. Your function should return true if the pattern is a subsequence of the text, and false otherwise. Example 1: text = abcde pattern = ace Output: true Example 2: text = abcde pattern = aec Output: false Example 3: text = abcde pattern = Output: true (An empty string is always a subsequence) Example 4: text = pattern = abc Output: false (A non-empty string cannot be a subsequence of an empty string) Consider edge cases such as empty strings and differing lengths. Discuss the time and space complexity of your solution. Aim for an optimal solution.

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Design an Autocomplete Service Let's design an autocomplete service, similar to what you'd find in Google Search or a code editor. The service should provide suggestions as the user types a query. Consider the following requirements: Functionality: The service should return the top k most relevant suggestions based on the user's input. Suggestions should be ranked by popularity (e.g., frequency of search). The system should support a large number of concurrent users. The system should be able to handle a large vocabulary of terms. The service needs to provide real-time or near real-time suggestions (low latency). The service should be fault-tolerant and highly available. Example: If a user types softw, the service might return: [software engineer, software developer, software company, software jobs]. If a user types ja, the service might return: [java, javascript, jakarta, james]. Considerations: How would you store the data to enable fast lookups? How would you handle updates to the suggestion data (e.g., new terms, updated popularity)? How would you scale the system to handle a large number of requests? What algorithms and data structures would you use? How would you optimize for latency? How would you handle different languages or character sets? How would you measure the performance of the service? Walk me through the design of this autocomplete service, considering the key components, data structures, algorithms, and scaling strategies. Describe any trade-offs you would make.

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Tell me about a time when you had to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Please provide specific details about the situation, including the parties involved, the nature of the confidential information, and the purpose of the NDA. Describe the scope of the agreement, including what was covered and any limitations. Explain your responsibilities under the NDA and how you ensured compliance with its terms. What steps did you take to protect the confidential information? Did you face any challenges in complying with the NDA, and if so, how did you overcome them? Share any lessons you learned from this experience regarding confidentiality and intellectual property protection. For example, imagine you were working on a sensitive project involving a new product or technology. You had to sign an NDA with a third-party vendor or partner to share certain confidential details. What were the key terms of the NDA, and how did you ensure that you and your team adhered to them? Or, describe a situation where you left a previous company and signed an NDA regarding trade secrets and customer information. How did you navigate your subsequent work to avoid any potential conflicts or violations of the NDA?