Validate grid balanced

Last updated: April 29, 2026

Quick Overview

Given a 2D grid of integers, write a function to determine if the grid is balanced. A grid is considered balanced if the sum of the elements in each row is equal to the sum of the elements in each column. The function should return a boolean value: true if the grid is balanced, and false otherwise.

Rippling
Coding & Algorithms
Software Engineer
Rippling
April 29, 2026
Software Engineer
Take-home Project
Coding & Algorithms
Easy

35

6

1,004 solved


Given a 2D grid of integers, write a function to determine if the grid is balanced. A grid is considered balanced if the sum of the elements in each row is equal to the sum of the elements in each column. The function should return a boolean value: true if the grid is balanced, and false otherwise.

Rippling uses this problem in the Take-home Project 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
  • Identify the correct data structure and algorithm for the problem
  • Write clean, bug-free code with proper variable naming
  • Analyze time and space complexity correctly
  • Handle basic edge cases (empty input, single element)
  • Communicate your thought process while coding
Key Topics to Cover
Binary search and divide and conquer
Time and space complexity analysis
Hash maps and frequency counting
Dynamic programming and memoization
Sorting and searching
Data structure selection and trade-offs
How to Approach This
  1. Clarify input constraints and edge cases before writing code.
  2. Walk through your approach verbally and confirm with the interviewer before coding.
  3. Start with a brute force solution, then optimize. Mention time and space complexity.
  4. Test your solution with examples, including edge cases like empty input or duplicates.
  5. Consider common patterns: sliding window, two pointers, hash map, BFS/DFS, dynamic programming.
Possible Follow-up Questions
  • How would your solution change if the input was sorted?
  • What happens if the input contains duplicates?
  • What is the worst-case input for your solution?
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Sample Answer
Problem Analysis

To determine if a grid is balanced, we need to check if the sum of each row equals the sum of each column. This problem can be approached using a straightforward calculation of sums for both rows and ...

Approach
  1. Initialize two lists: row_sums and col_sums, both sized according to the number of rows and columns in the grid.
  2. Iterate through each element in the grid with nested loops: the outer loop fo...

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