Find median in interval list
Last updated: August 5, 2025
Quick Overview
Given a interval list, find the longest subsequence efficiently using Topological Sort.
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Given a interval list, find the longest subsequence efficiently using Topological Sort.
This coding problem is frequently asked during Phone Screen at Pinterest. The interviewer is testing your ability to translate a problem into clean, working code while discussing time and space complexity. Pinterest expects candidates to write production-quality code, not just solve the puzzle.
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
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
- What happens if the input contains duplicates?
- What if the input doesn't fit in memory?
- Can you solve this iteratively instead of recursively (or vice versa)?
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Practice DSA ProblemsSample Answer
Problem Analysis
To find the median in a list of intervals, we first need to analyze what it means to find a median in this context. The median is the middle value in a sorted list of numbers. In the case of intervals...
Approach
- Extract Endpoints: Create a list of all endpoints from the given intervals. For example, given intervals
[(1, 3), (2, 4), (5, 7)], the endpoints would be[1, 3, 2, 4, 5, 7]. - **Sort Endpo...
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