Mock Google Coding Interview with a Meta Intern

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Today I gave a mock google coding interview to ‪@FryingPan‬ who is a former intern at Meta currently studying for coding interviews as he finishes up school. He also recently interned at Meta in NYC.
Btw this is the question I asked: leetcode.com/problems/insert-...
We actually solved it on the channel here: • Insert Delete GetRando...
🥷 Discord: / discord
🐦 Twitter: / neetcode1
📷 Instagram: / neetcodeio
🎵 TikTok: / neetcode.io
Time Stamps
0:00 - Intro / Background
1:45 - Interview Starts
2:45 - Clarifying questions
4:40 - Start coding
7:40 - Hint #1
11:15 - Suboptimal solution
16:35 - LIGHTBULB MOMENT
23:55 - Half time remaining
25:30 - Test cases
29:55 - Follow-up Question
36:55 - Bug bashing
39:13 - Disqualified for cheating
42:05 - Interview Complete
42:50 - Debrief
45:40 - Final Results
#google #coding #interview
google coding interview
coding interview
google interview
cracking the google interview
meta software engineer
facebook software engineer
software engineer interview

[@NeetCode]

🚀 neetcode.io/ - Get lifetime access to all current & future courses I create! Should FryingPan mock interview me next? Thanks to FryingPan for joining, check out his video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mH3OY2pjrbB0epI Btw this is the question I asked: leetcode.com/problems/insert-delete-getrandom-o1/ We actually solved it on the channel here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oGWuqJt4r86Cpsk

[@devstuff2576]

Wait, Google docs aren't used anymore???

[@alisonoz7219]

Yeah I'd like to see that 🤩

[@zesanurrahman6778]

I became homeless. I am depressed

[@slayerzerg]

yeees

[@smtp_yurzx]

It seems only fair and right with the world. I mean if you prefer balance in the universe rather than chaos.

[@Dulandor]

"If there is a problem, just throw a hashmap at it." - someone really smart

[@subhrajyotisen7218]

Funny how true this is

[@user-wo8kh7cw4k]

@@subhrajyotisen7218 why not Hashset here ? until follow up question

[@subhrajyotisen7218]

@@user-wo8kh7cw4kthe code in this interview seems to be more pseudo code. When writing actual code, they will mostly have to to use hashset since Set is usually an interface in many languages and HashSet is one of the implementations

[@nile7999]

@@user-wo8kh7cw4k you need to store the index as the value.

[@BTC500k]

“In your real interviews, do you talk the same way..?” LMAO that is the question I wanted to ask lol

[@pinecedar180]

It was obviously a frank discussion between friends

[@parvscripter]

@@pinecedar180 but you can be pretty frank just don't be unprofessional

[@decomush]

I'm 5 min into the video and I wanted to ask that

[@nikhil_a01]

I find it funny that when he googled for how to get an arbitrary element from a set, he actually found Java code, and pasted it into his Python solution. And NeetCode is just like "great".

[@malikau917]

😂

[@user-lt6hz7jh2p]

I 😂😂😂

[@NotNazuh]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@geekzombie8795]

Lel

[@tabish-shakeel]

I didn't notice that, can anyone paste the timestamp. I watched the video twice still didn't see it

[@tusharvyavahare9229]

for python folks, removing an item from set, which isn't in the set , using remove() method will result in error, so use discard() method.

[@danielsank2286]

Just use pop

[@yatintyagi4366]

or just use an if statement

[@youMatterItDoesGetBetter]

@@yatintyagi4366 wouldn't the if statement be more clear since the value isn't in the set to begin with? Thus if changed in the future... it'll still run correctly?

[@sandeepreddy1286]

Agree smart move

[@bit-learn]

@@danielsank2286 pop removes a random value from the set, not the required one

[@hariharanm9930]

Hey Neetcode! I got the exact same question on my Adobe interview two days ago. Luckily I have been practicing from your collection of questions last few months and never missed any of your videos. I bagged my offer today!! You have literally made this happen for me. Can’t thank you enough for this day!

[@onkarsingh-vu1ds]

Hi, is adobe allowing remote work?

[@SIAMEInekeidijdnen]

Congrats ma boi

[@usa5450]

Congrats nigg*

[@dv-89]

what collection of questions you are talking about? Neetcode 150?

[@paultvshow]

Hey man. I have been preparing for coding interviews for a month now. I am a self taught coder who is passionate about coding especially in AI and machine learning fields. I have just started coding for 3 months with hands on projects of over 50+ as I have quit my previous job and dedicated my full time learning coding. During the past weeks, I spent at least 4-5 hours a day on Leetcode and I have completed almost 100 problems. Now then I have started watching coding interview videos, and I feel that problems in most mock interviews seem a little too easy. So I just wanted to know from people like you who have already experienced real interviews that how difficult are there real problems?

[@free-palestine000]

please record more of these google mock interviews!! this questions seem so easy initially, but watching how frypan is talking aloud and saying his thought process makes me realize how the little details he says is actually valuable to you (neet) as the interviewer. now i realize why i failed my interviews so much

[@danielbrown7534]

Watch this i was thinking maybe we could store in an array..but wont store in array initially..we would then use a function to check the array if the value was already store there.. if yes then use the value position to store the new figure.. if no then use the new value as storage.. I would also use a function to get a random number using the array limitation then use that random number to return a value from set.

[@ahsanmurtaza6185]

@@danielbrown7534 That wouldn't meet the time complexity requirements.

[@stefannita3439]

@@danielbrown7534 searching in an array is O(n). Unless the array is sorted, in which case you can use binary search and it becomes O(logn). But to be able to always search in O(logn) you have to maintain the sorted order of the array at all times, which means your insertion becomes O(n) (find the correct index to insert at to maintain sorted order: O(logn), insert and then shift all of the elements to the right of it: O(n)) and your removal is now also O(n) (typical array removal). The point of this question is to kind of juggle all of these limitations. Every time you choose a data structure to optimize one of the operations, something else becomes more expensive. Nothing is free. This is why the trick is to use different data structures simultaneously, each good at different operations, and figure out how to make them work together to create an interface where all three of the exposed operations are O(1). But even this isn't free, as you're now basically doubling the memory you use (still O(n) space tho).

[@adolft_official]

These interviews are Haram bro, start praying 5 times for FALSEtine and Stop using Jewish owned KZbin as it funds Israel against your Allah

[@Neilblaze]

Been watching Mock interview sessions for a long time, but this is by far the most enjoyable session for my all time :)

[@willboler830]

Gah, what people watching this might be missing out on is the anxiety, and the difficulty between coding and talking through the code. I sat here correcting him as he went, but also remembered how much I stumbled over trivial stuff. It's so nerve racking.

[@asagiai4965]

True, IMHO I think he should ask all the possible questions. To ease the doubt.

[@SankarshanGhosh]

This is the first time I watched a 40 minute video. Real fun, we want more of these!

[@rajingale5776]

The collab we waiting for..🔥 The only 2 coding channels i subscribed and getting that collab is awesome..

[@krovvidisupraja6822]

Thanks so much @NeetCode for doing this. I think this video is pretty realistic (except for the way @FryingPan talks 😂) compared to the other mock interview videos online! Helped me relate a lot being an interviewee. Looking forward to more such videos!! Keep inspiring with your good work 😃

[@davidtran9455]

well did you get the job?

[@axaxaxaxaxaxax33]

the collab i didnt know i need 😂 frying pan is too funny lol. Great hint from Neetcode too, just enough to nudge him into revelation

[@Protocoding]

Things I'm starting to realize every developer needs to do during an interview. Ask tons of questions before even thinking about coding, even if they seem obvious. If the easiest way to think of a question is in one-time complexity odds are they are hinting at the complexity they want in the description of the question.

[@MichaelButlerC]

I just hate to ask questions for the sake of asking questions though...

[@eesnehhil]

@@MichaelButlerC frfrfr

[@AnimeZone247]

@@MichaelButlerCyou’re going to have to do that during the actual job

[@jasonswift7468]

This is a really inspring mock interview. Learn a lot from this standard mock interview. Please upload more similar interviews including system design mock interview.

[@MrPkmonster]

That's cool. I've learned a lot during the Mock test interview. Understand deeply the way the interviewer asked the candidate and the way of thinking to solve the problem.

[@supastazz]

That adding array to value for duplicate values was amazing, always had that doubt but I found the answer today. Thank you for the post

[@srinadhp]

Invigorating! Great questions all around, even greater thoughts and solutions!

[@MikeKm-hd1ve]

Priceless video!! Thank you so much!!

[@dacattilearnsenglish3141]

There were 4 people in my coding interview a few months ago. They were quite friendly with me, though. I had to code C++ in MS Word, which was a pain the neck. Even the easiest questions become hard because of tension. In addition to that, time flies when you are under pressure because you are trying to come up with an answer in your head and trying to word it properly.

[@atharvagupta9355]

This interview made me realize that I can do it too. Thanks, Neetcode

[@varshasingh1299]

Big fan of neetcode ❤️ just want to thank for all the amazing content you post in your channel... Thank you 🙏 love from India

[@heatchecknyc2142]

Enjoyed this video so much i watched on both your channels. Can you make a series of this?

[@SanjanaSingh-mc6re]

Can we get more interviews like this one? It was really helpful. Thanks!! 🙂

[@heretic7135]

??

[@house0795]

Awesome, more of that would be highly appreciated

[@basma-ba]

So useful and so fun session. thank you for this video, it relaxes me somehow while hearing the layoff news

[@karanbhatia2834]

This was like actually really awesome. I felt like I was solving the problem with him!

[@ztrixx3280]

this was really informative and fun at the same time. thanks NeetCode.

[@TiagoDiass2]

amazing content guys, loved it!

[@marspark6351]

Theres something neither of you caught. When you remove elements from the set that keeps track of indices and when there's only one element in the set, you are left with an empty set. What you want is to get rid of the map entry altogether. So you should check if it's the last element, and if it is, del that entry. Also, he mentions changing to a set instead of an array because when he chose the array first, he was using the first index and then he probably thought "wait.. now if I delete the first index I have to shift all the remaining ones to the left". Well actually you can simply use the last one instead of the first by using "pop", and so you can still use the array

[@christiancepeda5457]

excellent observation

[@ProfessorQuality]

what if you want to remove the number first in the list, you can't use pop() instead?

[@xingzheli7431]

It's remove by value, so it's worst-case linear time for an array.

[@Biggyweezer69]

@@ahmadelmassalkhi This actually isn't true. since we are only ever pushing values into the values array, the index of the last value in the value array will always be the last index in that values index array. This stays true whether there are duplicate last values or not. Using a set here isn't better really.

[@ahmadelmassalkhi]

​@@Biggyweezer69 I realized I was digging deep, while even the obvious case of having a duplicate of the last element, it raises an error (in the final code of the guy in the video)

[@atalaramadhan9313]

The collab I was waiting for years. You guys are prob my fav swe youtubers

[@SankHar4]

Neet code Please do conduct whenever possible it helps the everyone a lot of Learning. Thank you so much...

[@davidkolesom]

Love this Mr. Neet Code!

[@tedwoldeselassie5715]

I would implement the Get(bool random, Enum input) first, then when implementing the Insert, pass each iteration to Get() with random false. If it returns a value then dont insert it as its duplicate. To get random you jusst need to set random to true. Then the remove is straight forward.

[@denhoward6438]

Nice video, I can feel the pressure of the interviewee by his word and face

[@christianmorera4127]

I love this, frying pan makes coding interviews fun

[@creamymain7867]

Love the "Now let me ask you another question" at the beginning haha. Very inciteful video btw

[@k.i.r.a_619]

This guy is total tech lead material

[@yitongxie6574]

the last part you ask 'do you talk like this in real interview?' and then 'nothing' really make me laugh

[@cowaiicow8802]

I never thought i needed this collab until now...

[@zweitekonto9654]

You never know what u need until its too late. Thats why ur broke.

[@RaghavRathi-qb8fr]

This is prolly the best channel out there for ds algos!!!

[@pokatana4130]

Nice video. Love to see more so I can prepare.

[@5pellcast3r]

The collab I didn't know I needed ..... 🙃

[@imbes64]

pretty decent easy-med level q to ask, will use in my own new hire interviews as it makes for good discussion!

[@chenbi5258]

OMG, very impressed by this solution.

[@harryshi1]

love the concept, if you need another person to mock interview I would be happy to do one. I am an ex Quant trader now studying for algo / CS jobs.

[@ahmedanwer6899]

Are ya still down? :)

[@utsabkhakurel9742]

In the follow-up, you could have just chosen the last element from the list to swap self.map[value][-1] and used pop() to remove it after the swap.

[@yosup7563]

There is no indexing in sets so self.map[value][-1] wouldt work and then he also pasted some wrong java code in

[@myrtiy]

Neetcode’s code is neat! Thank you Neetcode!

[@brainesteven6365]

in the 30:28, the follow up question is to allow array to store duplciate. The follow up seems to be simplified, in general, it may ask while allowing to store duplicate values, what is to make each number to has the same probility in getRandom(say 1,2,2,2,2,2,3), 1 and 2 and 3 has the same 1/3 probility to be returned.

[@chengyuanchang4000]

The code in follow up has a bug... In the remove function, when the size of self.map[value] equals to zero, we need to delete the empty set like `del self.map[value]`. Otherwise, next remove call for same element will cause an error.

[@LeSpaceCroissant]

My man was coding in Python and searched how to get the first element of a set in Java. Genius. And he said it so confidently too: "I got it sir! I got it!" 39:25 😂 It's "next(iter(mySet))" by the way. And thank you for the video, it was really nice!

[@jose6378]

Unironically got a very similar question for Amazon SDE position

[@negarvahid3429]

Bro why didn't you upload this sooner I had my interview yesterday :,)

[@YSTYG]

I thought we were about to get a face reveal 😂

[@NeetCode]

Maybe on part 2... lol

[@somakkamos]

Seriously man..i so badly want to see neetcode.. in my mind he is like moriarty frm sherlock show... coz thats how brilliant neetcode is.😊😊😝

[@josepha8415]

@@NeetCode Is Techlead in the thumbnail

[@joshuabiyinzika2834]

Me too..neetcode, make it happen!

[@skyhappy]

Neetcode looks like an angel for sure

[@CarInLot]

Love this new content.

[@mr.rodzhers8663]

Well shown who is a front-end developer, thanks

[@user-wd1yj6vq7t]

Funniest, energetic interview I have ever seen , I want confidence like this😅🤣

[@federicopessina974]

very useful and well designed website NC!

[@codealonewithGod]

I am happy to know I almost guessed all the approach correctly!!

[@cenchang3765]

So funny. I am still struggling with leetcode by just finishing the first 200. And I did not have much interview experience. The video makes me feel like we are all human beings.

[@andreainvernizzi8510]

So many headaches to end up in a cubicle Monday to Friday. May as well deploy this knowledge to develop independently and get all the benefits.

[@chrisrey2516]

i was able to come up with similar solution. I'm happy lol. I was thinking along with him

[@charminghostes]

hey hey dude, thanks for the vidos!! now a cool mood for the whole day :)))

[@GinjouArmy]

Glad I could follow along with the code on the white Goggle Doc.

[@ilovemeee21]

More of these please !!!!!

[@salvadorortiz449]

Something important is the use of descriptive names for your variables, because in this case without any previous context you won’t figure out what’s the function of “map” or “values”variables.

[@mannyb096]

thats actually a great point! I guess in this case what kind of variable names would you use? Bcuz i cant think of what to call them other than values either lol

[@hydromaniac7117]

@@mannyb096 removedInt

[@tune6000]

Do more of these

[@user-ot4zl1ii2z]

Can I ask if it is possible to use Built-in functions from the built-in datatructures in coding interviews, as what he used map.add() and map.remove() in the first problem? I thought it is required to create your own efficient functions except the Random Functions.

[@jphamlett]

You can always ask, interviewers are looking for specific things. Most are just to see how you think not that you can regurgitate a solution

[@charleslatrom7658]

Using built-ins are fine if there's more to the question. If the question was implement an efficient class which supports add and remove whilst omitting duplicates, then delegating to a Set would not be appropriate as they would be looking for you to design your own Set class (or similar). However you would not be asked that in an interview (unless you're going for L6+ at Google in a language-design role, e.g Guava team, Core Java Libraries, etc)) as the Map, Set, etc classes are extremely complex to write from scratch in 35 minutes.

[@jemanuelg99]

Im not sure if the rudeness was real or satirical. I’m not sure if being rude to the interviewer is a great strategy.

[@tyeezy5460]

Language barrier maybe? But prob satire

[@yskida5]

Great collab!

[@noomade]

This was fun. Never seen someone so pleased to get the answer :P

[@jonTheDon28]

None of my coding interviews for internships have been anywhere near this easy

[@harryzhu]

but the mock interviews from faang are - its a mock not a real assessment- its used to get a feel for the format and UMPIRE application

[@Ripred0219]

The snarky comments while Neetcode remained mute was hilarious

[@JoaoPereira-if5jk]

Awesome video! Quick question: What's the point of changing the last item of the array to the value to be deleted if you're just going to pop it anyway? Can't we just remove that extra step?

[@koch9666]

Omg that was so fun I really enjoyed the vid and it's perfect too because I have a final round coding interview later this week! You guys should collab more often, that would be such good content!

[@shafaitahir4728]

How did it go?

[@MightyElemental]

got my first interview on wednesday and this video equally relaxes and terrifies me 😅 Trouble is I cannot think aloud. I can think, then explain, but that takes more time. Hopefully not an issue, but we shall see 🤞

[@mpi3602]

I think the end solution doesn't consider removing a value from a map that has only one index

[@sajitullahkhan]

Bro please make more these kind of coding interview videos

[@girrajjangid4681]

Thanks you @NeetCode.

[@gnes04]

Ngl I thought he'd do a lot better for a meta intern. The first question was easy as balls

[@isaiahparadiso8044]

Pro tip to people interviewing. Don’t talk like this guy. Don’t swear. Don’t quiz the interviewer. Finding the optimal solution is a must, but they’re also deciding if they want to work with you. Some crude banter can give the wrong signal, and there’s zero advantage to you in risking it. Be polite. Don’t be cocky. Every grading rubric has score around cultural and team fit. Just FYI.

[@DC-yw5yg]

FUC.K

[@sriharisrinivasan5108]

how did I get this recommended just before the daily leetcode question became this today

[@lilygranger6264]

OMG my two favorite youtubers!!!

[@bit-learn]

please @NeetCode if your are watching .. so on the first part my approach was to solve everything through set as set gives everything like adding, remove with num and generating a random number from set (we can add it again on the next line) plus on the second part where duplicates are allowed .. we can change it to hashmap so that on removing if the values aren't zero we can just remove the iteration count of the numbers or pop the number otherwise when iteration count goes 0. need help in clarifying it .. thanks for experience though

[@anonymoussloth6687]

Can you explain the follow up with allowing duplicates. I didn't understand that

[@idontseeit]

could you use 2 hash maps? one that maps values to indexes, and one that maps indexes values? that way we can just generate a random integer from the index hash map and use that to get the corresponding value from the value hash map

[@janni7439]

Those sort of questions are a little bit odd, because the "reduce complexity" always boils down to the data structure behind and there basically a lot of useful stuff was already invented, so you wouldnt hire someone, who can recreate such a structure from scratch, because that's totally not part of the daily business.

[@paulofelipe2780]

Another important question that could have been asked is the range of possible values to be inserted, it can influence a lot the final solution complexity!

[@saveuyghurmuslims2354]

man plz do more and more hard and prefessional plz plz we need this.

[@showbhik9700]

Hey, Neetcode! Lovely video. Just want to say your videos helped me a lot during my interview prep for Google. While I couldn't make it there, I definitely learnt a lot. PS: I work with Amazon now 😉

[@von...]

regarding the large layoff rumors: based on your experience there so far (& especially with how its been recently), will new-grad hiring essentially be frozen & it'll be a moot point for me to go hard on getting an interview there?

[@showbhik9700]

@@von... Depends on the org for which you will be selected. There are specific orgs who are getting the axe because the leadership overestimated their growth. For orgs like AWS, Whole Foods, Prime, Go, which is commodity based and have real demand, the layoffs have not been done.

[@showbhik9700]

​@@ashiqhussainkumar1391 I am sorry about that man. I hope you get your call soon

[@me___5796]

Should we delete empty value-indices pairs from the map as we are removing? It seems to me that leaving empty sets around not only waste space but also breaks the if statement above.

[@MRTNWSS]

I agree.

[@marspark6351]

Yes. That's something they missed

[@rjlacanlaled9419]

I'm actually him during my interviews 😂😂 Its easy to figure out solution when you're not under pressure, but in actual interviews there's so many things that can happen and the anxiety can get to you and affect your performance.

[@haijunsi6107]

deadass i had this question for bloomberg

[@tylermurphy2764]

Friendship is real lol Love it!

[@andso7068]

Lol, you just gotta love stack overflow

[@Entropy67]

Couldn't the inital problem of get_random being o(n) be resolved by using the keySet() method of the hashmap? This would return a list of the keys of which we could then choose a random one based on its index, and then we would return the value in the hashset at a key: return self.map.get( random.choice(self.map.keySet())) from what I know im pretty sure hashmaps usually store a key list regardless so this should all be o(1)... ?

[@eakishway]

Exactly. (keySet is called keys in Python.)

[@MrD3eath]

Wait I immediately recognized this is insert delete random O(1) from watching so many of your videos

[@Khalid-fx9sm]

This is brilliant

[@RohitMenon6899]

set() doesn’t have iterator() attribute right so the way he gets the first value of the set in the remove function won’t work. Correct me if I’m wrong

[@flothus]

Good parts: Asked good questions. Voiced thought process. Provided good test cases. Could recover from bugs. Could make use of hints. Solved the assignment. Not so good and red flags: Too focused on how to ace the coding part instead of making a good impression as a team player. Some unnecessary code. Raised voice and tried to school the interviewer to cope with pressure. Didn't act humble and didn't seem very interested in reflection after the interview, instead was more interested in competition and returning a "hard" question. Also foul language and improvable attitude and composure. Might be just acceptable in a youtube interview but would have been much better without that! Thanks to both for the video!