Google Software Engineering Mock Interview: Find Ancestors of a Given Node in a Binary Tree

[@tryexponent]

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[@simonayzman]

Great to be back!

[@randxalthor]

Just want to thank you all for putting these videos together. They've been invaluable in helping me improve my technical interview performance, and I hope they're working well as part of your platform from both a content and marketing perspective. You have great interviewers and interviewees, and every new video provides new examples and insights. Really looking forward to putting the skills we're learning here to good use!

[@oolongjasminetea]

Simon introducing himself differently in every video and getting new jobs is such a flex ~ I just watched his Spotify Exponent video too! If he gets a new job soon (or a promotion), I hope we get another video.

[@simonayzman]

Just some good timing 😂 we should have another video coming up eventually, but alas, no promotion! One can dream though

[@moezzzz9341]

Simon is so smart man. Hope I can be as good as him with these interview questions.

[@didoma73]

what you are seeing has been scripted and rehearsed for the purpose of this video

[@simonayzman]

@@didoma73 It’s true! Moreso scripted, by yours truly, and less so rehearsed 😂

[@hunterxg]

It's easy to look smart when you rehearsed it and already know the answer/algo. Those type of interviews are so useless to find good engineers.

[@simonayzman]

​@@hunterxg Don't get me wrong; I totally hear what you're saying. But we should put the purpose of these videos into context. We're trying to teach SWE job-seekers how to approach technical coding problems. Things like asking clarifying questions, using examples to faciliate communication and to unblock yourself, tracing through code and unit testing, etc. Whether algorithms / data structures interviews are the best mechanism for gauging future success as a software engineer is a whole other question, and the debate has been everlasting, opinionated, and complex. Nevertheless, it's the current state of affairs for a lot of companies, and it's worth getting good at these types of interviews if you'd like to work at those places.

[@jacobsimon4699]

Awesome! Super clear explanation

[@Muntazir-Ali]

Super clear explanation

[@tacowilco7515]

Good interview example. Thank you folks.

[@simonayzman]

👍🏼

[@ammaryasser976]

Great interview! I just have one comment, isn't the space complexity is O(h) not O(n)?

[@simonayzman]

In the worst possible case, the binary tree is effectively a linked list, and that means that the algorithm could take O(n) time.

[@islamimankhodzhaev543]

Thank you for video)