Sliding Window on interval list
Last updated: December 4, 2025
Quick Overview
Given a list of intervals, implement a sliding window approach to find the maximum number of non-overlapping intervals that can be selected. The input is a list of intervals represented as pairs of integers, and the output should be an integer representing the count of the selected intervals. Ensure your solution efficiently handles cases with overlapping and adjacent intervals.
xAI
December 4, 202542
7
1,506 solved
Given a list of intervals, implement a sliding window approach to find the maximum number of non-overlapping intervals that can be selected. The input is a list of intervals represented as pairs of integers, and the output should be an integer representing the count of the selected intervals. Ensure your solution efficiently handles cases with overlapping and adjacent intervals.
xAI uses this problem in the Technical Screen to evaluate your algorithmic thinking. They expect you to discuss multiple approaches, analyze trade-offs between them, and implement the optimal solution with clean, readable code.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Quickly identify the optimal approach and its theoretical basis
- Handle complex algorithm design with multiple interacting components
- Write concise, elegant code under time pressure
- Prove correctness of your approach and discuss alternative solutions
- Optimize beyond the obvious: discuss constant factor improvements
- Address follow-up variations and explain how the solution generalizes
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
- Can you solve this in a single pass?
- How would you parallelize this solution?
- How would you test this solution thoroughly?
- Can you optimize the space complexity of your solution?
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Practice DSA ProblemsSample Answer
Problem Analysis
The goal is to find the maximum number of non-overlapping intervals from the given list of intervals. This problem can be solved using a greedy algorithm combined with a sorting step. The key ...
Approach
- Sort the Intervals: First, sort the list of intervals based on their end times. For example, given intervals
[[1,2],[2,3],[3,4],[1,3]], after sorting, we get[[1,2],[1,3],[2,3],[3,4]]. - *...
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