Google Onsite Interview US
Summary
I participated in an onsite interview at Google in the US, where the main challenge involved a complex graph traversal problem focused on counting lakes within an island grid under specific conditions.
Full Experience
I had an onsite interview at Google in the US. The session started with a unique problem: 'Count the number of lakes in an island.' I was given a large m * n grid and an island coordinate. The task was to determine the number of lakes within that island. A critical detail was that any lake connected to the surrounding ocean should not be counted. The problem statement initially had some ambiguities, and I spent the first 15 minutes asking clarifying questions to fully grasp the requirements, especially regarding how to handle the large grid size and distinguish lakes from the ocean.
Interview Questions (1)
Given a large grid of m * n and an island coordinate within it, I needed to calculate the number of lakes from that coordinate. The grid could have multiple islands, all surrounded by a large ocean, and I could assume ocean outside the grid boundaries. I clarified that there could be zero or more lakes, and crucially, if a lake within an island was connected to the ocean, it should not be counted. The main constraint highlighted was the grid's immense size, requiring an efficient method to distinguish lakes from the ocean.