Compute nested depth-weighted sum
Company: Meta
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: Medium
Interview Round: Technical Screen
You are given a nested structure containing integers and lists (e.g., [1, [4, [6]]]). Define depth of the top-level as 1. Compute the total sum of all integers multiplied by their depth. Handle empty lists, large depth, and negative integers. Provide both recursive (DFS) and iterative (BFS/stack) approaches, analyze time and space complexity, and discuss how you would design the interface for accessing nested elements.
Quick Answer: This question evaluates understanding of tree-like nested data structures, traversal strategies (recursive DFS and iterative approaches), handling of edge cases such as empty lists and negative integers, and algorithmic reasoning about time and space complexity within the Coding & Algorithms domain.