Uber interview Dynamic Programming
I have Uber interview coming up. In the prep docs the recruiter sent, it’s mentioned to avoid preparing on memorization and dynamic programming. I was bit surprised that they called it out. I understand I should not take it for granted but wanted to ask the folks here. Does Uber generally try and avoid dynamic programming questions?
If you are only interviewing with Uber, then if they say it’s out of scope it’s out of scope. But if you’re interviewing anywhere else you can expect them DP questions.
DP rarely gives a strong signal on ability to translate idea to code - it’s one of those things where you either know it and practiced, or you will have a hard time coming up with a optimal solution at all. Only very specialized teams here use any DP if at all.
Yes, we're more interested in seeing if you can invert a binary tree instead.
DP is 0/1 situation, if you don't come up with the right solution, you're doomed.
At Uber we interview with the intent of getting a "signal" of sorts on how smart the candidate is and do they have good fundamentals. DP questions are pretty bad for that since it comes down to do you know it or not. If you don't then what signal can we get from it? Likewise if you do know it how much signal do we get from that?
Because recent years we hired clowns who themselves don’t know DP. Pray to god that you won’t get an OG interviewer.
Thanks for the insights. But is it really true Uber does not ask dynamic programming questions?
IDK if this has changed, but in interview training we were told not to
Don't study DP bro.... Please..... Source: I did interview more than 50 times at FB.
Is it officially banned at Facebook as well? Or is it just that most interviewers won’t ask DP questions?
Uber asked me coin change problem in phone interview around 1.5 yrs ago. This is a DP problem.
No, that's recursion.
Recursion with memoization, isn't it DP. Question was how many different ways you can make change. E.g. 11 cents can be 1 cent 11 times or 5 cents 2 times + 1 cent or 5 cents + 1 cent 6 times. You can also attempt bottom up DP which does not use recursion.
You would be under prepared if you're not able to come up with dynamic programming solutions when appropriate.
Lol the smart azz has spoken