22 questions · from 10 interviews
Coupang interview questions
Every question candidates reported from their Coupang interviews, most frequently asked first. Each links to the write-up it came from, so you can see the round and how it went.
Coupang coding and DSA questions
- 01
Minimize Connected Nodes by Directing Edges
Given n warehouses and two lists from and to representing bidirectional edges between them, convert the undirected graph into a directed graph such that the number of connected (reachable) nodes is as small as possible. The conversion must be done optimally.…
- 02
Minimum Batch Size
Complete the 'findMinBatchSize' function below. The function is expected to return an INTEGER. The function accepts following parameters: INTEGERARRAY dataSamples INTEGER maxBatches A machine learning training pipeline processes data in batches to optimize…
- 03
LFU Cache Implementation
Implement an LFU (Least Frequently Used) cache.
- 04
Sort Colors (Dutch National Flag Problem)
Given an array nums with n objects colored red, white, or blue, sort them in-place so that objects of the same color are adjacent, with the colors in the order red, white, and blue. I was specifically asked to code this in one pass without using a map.
Medium · From Coupang USA L6-1 Offer
- 05
Minimum Connections to Join Friend Networks
Given networks of two friends represented by a grid, find the minimum number of connections required to join these distinct networks into a single connected component. This problem can be solved using a simple Breadth-First Search (BFS).
Medium · From Coupang USA L6-1 Offer
- 06
Number of Distinct Island Shapes
Given a grid consisting of 0s (water) and 1s (land), find the number of distinct shapes of islands. Two islands are considered the same shape if one can be translated to match the other. For example, in the grid…
Medium · From Coupang USA L6-1 Offer
- 07
Find Distance Between Closest Islands
Given a grid[][] containing 0s and 1s , where '0' represents water and '1' represents the land. Given that an island is a group of land (1s) surrounded by water (0s) on all sides. The task is to find the distance between the two closest islands such that:…
Hard · From Coupang | Staff SE | BLR
- 08
Design Data Structure with Min/Max String Counts
Design a data structure to store the count of strings with the ability to return the strings with minimum and maximum counts. Implement the class: inc(String key) - Increments the count of the string key by 1 dec(String key) - Decrements the count of the…
Hard · From Coupang Staff Round1
- 09
Best Meeting Point
Given a binary matrix grid where each 1 marks the home of a friend, we need to find a 'meeting point' such that the total travel distance of all friends to that point is minimized. The travel distance is calculated using the Manhattan distance. The meeting…
Medium · From Coupang
- 10
Minimum Stack in O(1)
Implement a data structure for a Minimum Stack where all operations (push, pop, top, getMin) should execute in O(1) time complexity.
Medium · From Coupang | SSE | TPS | BLR
- 11
Design File System with CRUD Operations
Given an interface for a file system (similar to LeetCode 1166. Design File System), implement the following methods: - Create Directory - Create File with content (if file is not present, create it with that content; else, append the content to the existing…
- 12
Subsequences without Consecutive Characters
You have a source pattern and a target string, figure out how many ways you could get the source pattern in the target string as a subsequence if you cannot take consecutive characters (PS: loosely worded but hope the example below makes sense). Example:…
From Coupang Interview Experience | L5 | Senior Software Engineer [Passed]
- 13
Spiral Matrix (Counter Clockwise)
Counter clockwise version of spiral matrix.
From Coupang Interview Experience | L5 | Senior Software Engineer [Passed]
- 14
Diagonal Traverse
Diagonal traversal of matrix
From Coupang Interview Experience | L5 | Senior Software Engineer [Passed]
Coupang system design questions
- 01
Design a Notification System
Design a Notification system. Include functional requirements (e.g., sending real‑time notifications via multiple channels), non‑functional requirements (scalability, reliability, low latency), API design, data model, handling fan‑out, deduplication, and how…
- 02
Design a Product Review System with Keyword Search
Design a product review system for an e‑commerce platform where customers can write reviews and search the reviews using keywords. Cover requirements such as write/read latency, indexing for keyword search, data storage, scaling read/write traffic, and any…
- 03
Design Uber
Design a ride-sharing application similar to Uber. The interviewer expected significant depth in the design, covering aspects such as user and driver management, matching algorithms, real-time location tracking, fare calculation, notification systems,…
Hard · From Coupang USA L6-1 Offer
- 04
Design Blob Storage (S3-like)
Design a highly available and scalable blob storage service similar to Amazon S3. The discussion involved topics like distributed file systems, data replication strategies, partitioning mechanisms, consistency models, and fault tolerance. We specifically…
Hard · From Coupang USA L6-1 Offer
- 05
Design E-commerce Product Tracking Service
Design a service for tracking products ordered through e-commerce. Products could be delivered across countries with multiple stops across in origin and destination countries with different modes of transport. Order delivery would be handled by multiple…
- 06
Design a Book Shop
Create a UML diagram / list out the entities and APIs that you'd need to create a Book shop . Functional Requirements: - You should be able to search for books with title and authors. (Note: The company may require you to keep this extendible to support more…
From Coupang Interview Experience | L5 | Senior Software Engineer [Passed]
Coupang behavioural and HR questions
- 01
Solving Problems with Multiple Solutions
Tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem when there were multiple solutions to this.
From Coupang Interview Experience | L5 | Senior Software Engineer [Passed]
- 02
Taking Hard Decisions in Engineering
Tell me about a time when you had to take a hard decision in your engineering process.
From Coupang Interview Experience | L5 | Senior Software Engineer [Passed]
Coupang interview questions FAQ
What questions are asked in Coupang interviews?
Candidates reported 22 distinct questions across 10 Coupang interviews. 14 coding and DSA questions, 6 system design questions, 2 behavioural and HR questions.
How difficult are Coupang interview questions?
Of the questions candidates rated, 0% were easy, 56% medium and 44% hard.