snowflake | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified
Interview Process
- Application Submission: 11.21
- Online Assessment Completion: 11.24
- HR Call: 12.3
- Work Authorization Form Completion: 12.10
- Video Interview 1: 12.13
- Video Interview 2: 12.14
- Notification of Passing Interviews and Scheduling Hiring Manager Call: 12.20
Technical Questions
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Maximum Revenue Query Selection
- Topic: Dynamic Programming, Greedy
- Problem: As the CEO of Snowflake, given a virtual warehouse with n types of queries, determine which query to select to maximize total revenue within k minutes and return the maximum revenue along with the corresponding query type.
- Solution Approach: Since only one type of query can be selected and can run infinitely, this is a maximum profit problem over a unit time. Calculate the total revenue for each query type over k minutes and select the one with the highest total revenue.
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Ingredient List Matching
- Topic: Hash Table, String Matching
- Problem: Given a sorted list of ingredients and several recipes, each representing a sequence of consecutive ingredients, determine if each recipe can be formed by concatenating the ingredients in order.
- Solution Approach: Use a hash prefix matching technique by preprocessing the ingredient list to enumerate all possible consecutive subsequences with a time complexity of O(n²).
- Follow-up 1: If only O(1) extra space is allowed, use a two-pointer technique with a sliding window.
- Follow-up 2: If the ingredients are input as a data stream and the volume is large, maintain a state machine for traversal and matching.
Tips & Insights
- Focus on understanding the problem requirements thoroughly before jumping into coding.
- Practice dynamic programming and string matching problems to prepare for similar questions.