google | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Pass
Difficulty: Average
Interview Process
The interview consisted of a technical phone screen focused on coding. The candidate was asked to solve a problem involving a binary tree.
Technical Questions
- Binary Tree Level Order Traversal Iterator
- Topic: Tree, Breadth-First Search, Design
- Question: Implement an iterator that returns the level order traversal of a binary tree without storing the entire traversal in memory at once. The candidate proposed using a queue to maintain the current level’s nodes and flatten the next level as needed.
Tips & Insights
- The candidate emphasized the importance of memory efficiency when designing an iterator and suggested that each iterator should maintain its own queue while the underlying tree remains read-only. They also mentioned using lightweight locks or version snapshots to avoid conflicts when multiple iterators share the same tree structure.