Staples Software Engineer III Interview Questions and Answers

Medium level coding test based on knapsack.

Design Google calendar

Tranpose a matrix

Q1. Given a tree and a node, print all ancestors of Node
Ans. 
Given a tree and a node, print all ancestors of Node
• Start from the given node and traverse up the tree

• While traversing, keep track of the parent nodes

• Print the parent nodes as you traverse up until reaching the root
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Q2. What would be the ideal data structure to represent people and friend relations in facebook
Ans. 
Graph
• Use a graph data structure to represent people as nodes and friend relations as edges

• Each person can be represented as a node with their unique identifier

• Friend relations can be represented as directed edges between nodes

• This allows for efficient traversal and retrieval of friend connections
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Q3. Reverse a linked list
Ans. 
Reverse a linked list
• Iterate through the linked list and change the direction of the pointers

• Use three pointers to keep track of the previous, current, and next nodes

• Recursively reverse the linked list
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Q1. Code to determine the median of datapoints present in two sorted arrays. Most efficient algo
Ans. 
Code to find median of datapoints in two sorted arrays
• Use binary search to find the median index

• Divide the arrays into two halves based on the median index

• Compare the middle elements of the two halves to determine the median
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Q1. Discussion about projects, and previous experience
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Q2. Custom implementation of stack where there are two additional methods that return the min and max of the elements in the stack
Ans. 
Custom stack with methods to return min and max elements
• Implement a stack using an array or linked list

• Track the minimum and maximum elements using additional variables

• Update the minimum and maximum variables during push and pop operations

• Implement methods to return the minimum and maximum elements
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Q1. Could you please share about your experience
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Hackerrank
Inheritance class design
JSON parsing from a URL

Q1. Word break String to Integer System design e commerce app
Ans. 
The interviewee was asked about word break, string to integer, and system design for an e-commerce app.
• Word break: Given a string and a dictionary of words, determine if the string can be segmented into a space-separated sequence of dictionary words.

• String to integer: Convert a string to an integer. Handle negative numbers and invalid inputs.

• System design e-commerce app: Design an e-commerce app with features like prod...read more
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Q1. Node + Js (theory questions)
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Q1. This was a problem solving round
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Q2. Multiple Questions 1. If the linked list is palindrome ? 2. array sort with the given elements as 012
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Q1. This was another coding round.
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Q2. Leetcode easy to medium questions
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Q1. This was hiring manager round.
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Q2. One DS questions Some discussion on projects (previous and current)
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Q1. 1. Create a program for a Race, where 5 people will start the race at the same time and return who finishes first. using multithreading.
Ans. 
A program to simulate a race with 5 people using multithreading and determine the winner.
• Create a class for the race participants

• Implement the Runnable interface for each participant

• Use a thread pool to manage the threads

• Start all threads simultaneously

• Wait for all threads to finish

• Determine the winner based on the finishing time
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Q2. 2. write get and put methods of Java Hashamap.
Ans. 
The get and put methods of Java HashMap are used to retrieve and store key-value pairs respectively.
• To retrieve a value from a HashMap, use the get() method and pass the key as a parameter.

• To store a key-value pair in a HashMap, use the put() method and pass the key and value as parameters.

• Example: HashMap<String, Integer> map = new HashMap<>(); map.put("apple", 5); int count = map.get("apple"); // returns
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Q3. 3. How request flows in Spring boot MVC. 4. how many ways to instantiate a bean? 5. what will you do in case of a Java out-of-memory exception?
Ans. 
Request flows in Spring Boot MVC, ways to instantiate a bean, and handling Java out-of-memory exception.
• Request flows in Spring Boot MVC: DispatcherServlet receives HTTP request, HandlerMapping maps request to appropriate controller, Controller processes request and returns response.

• Ways to instantiate a bean: Constructor injection, setter injection, and using the @Bean annotation.

• Handling Java out-of-memory exception:...read more
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Q4. 6. What are static, final, and abstract in Java
Ans. 
Static, final, and abstract are keywords in Java used for different purposes.
• Static is used to create variables and methods that belong to the class rather than an instance of the class.

• Final is used to declare constants or to prevent a class, method, or variable from being overridden or modified.

• Abstract is used to create abstract classes and methods that cannot be instantiated and must be implemented by subclasses.
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Q5. 7. Which data structure you will use to search a lot of data.
Ans. 
I would use a hash table for efficient searching of a lot of data.
• Hash tables provide constant time complexity for search operations.

• They use a hash function to map keys to array indices, allowing for quick retrieval of data.

• Examples of hash table implementations include dictionaries in Python and HashMaps in Java.
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