Cracking Uber's Robot Grid Distance Challenge: Insights from a Software Engineer Interview

Uber | Software Engineer | Interview Experience

Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified

Interview Process

During the interview, I was presented with the Robot Grid Distance Challenge. The problem involved finding the shortest path for a robot located at the top-left corner of a grid, navigating around obstacles to reach the bottom-right corner. The robot can only move right or down.

Technical Questions

  1. Robot Grid Distance Challenge (Dynamic Programming)
    • Problem Statement: Given a 2D grid with obstacles (1 for obstacle, 0 for open space), find the length of the shortest path to the bottom-right corner if a path exists.
    • Example:
      Input: [[0,0,0],[0,1,0],[0,0,0]]
      Output: 4
    • Constraints: The grid dimensions are a maximum of 100x100, with potential obstacles blocking the path.

Tips & Insights

I received two follow-up questions related to optimization techniques and dynamic programming concepts.