Find median in grid
Last updated: July 22, 2025
Quick Overview
Given a grid, find the connected components efficiently using Greedy.
Compass
Coding & Algorithms
Software Engineer
Compass
July 22, 2025Software Engineer
Phone Screen
Coding & Algorithms
Medium
13
12
4,588 solved
Given a grid, find the connected components efficiently using Greedy.
Coding interviews at Compass focus on problem-solving approach as much as the final solution. The interviewer wants to see you break down the problem, consider edge cases, and optimize iteratively. Communication throughout the process is key.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Recognize the underlying problem pattern (sliding window, two pointers, BFS/DFS, etc.)
- Discuss multiple approaches and trade-offs before coding
- Implement an optimal solution with clean, production-quality code
- Handle all edge cases including boundary conditions and invalid input
- Optimize both time and space complexity with clear justification
- Test your solution systematically with well-chosen examples
Key Topics to Cover
Data structure selection and trade-offs
Edge cases and input validation
Common algorithm patterns (sliding window, two pointers, BFS/DFS)
Graph algorithms and traversal
Dynamic programming and memoization
Sorting and searching
How to Approach This
- Clarify input constraints and edge cases before writing code.
- Walk through your approach verbally and confirm with the interviewer before coding.
- Start with a brute force solution, then optimize. Mention time and space complexity.
- Test your solution with examples, including edge cases like empty input or duplicates.
- Consider common patterns: sliding window, two pointers, hash map, BFS/DFS, dynamic programming.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- Can you solve this in a single pass?
- What happens if the input contains duplicates?
- What if the input doesn't fit in memory?
- How would you parallelize this solution?
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Practice DSA ProblemsSample Answer
Problem Analysis
To find the connected components in a grid, we can recognize that this problem can be approached using Depth-First Search (DFS) or Breadth-First Search (BFS). These graph traversal techniques ...
Approach
- Initialize a visited set to keep track of cells we have already processed.
- Iterate through each cell in the grid. For each unvisited cell that is part of a component (e.g., has the value...
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