Compute prices, distances, and Top-K for orders
Company: Coinbase
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: Medium
Interview Round: Onsite
Build functions for a food‑delivery analytics module.
Data:
- Restaurants: id, (x, y) location, menu mapping item -> price.
- Orders: id, restaurantId, timestamp (Unix ms), line items: (item, quantity).
Tasks:
(a) Given the user's (x, y) and a target item, return the restaurant
(s) offering the lowest price for that item and, among ties, the nearest by Euclidean distance (return id and distance).
(b) For a time window [start, end), compute total revenue, order count, and average order value.
(c) For a time window [start, end), return Top K orders by total price (id, total) and Top K items by quantity sold (item, quantity). Specify tie‑breaking rules, chosen data structures, and complexity.
Quick Answer: Compute prices, distances, and Top-K for orders evaluates algorithm design, data structures, correctness, complexity, edge cases, and implementation details in a realistic interview setting. A strong answer states assumptions, handles edge cases, explains trade-offs, and shows how to validate the result clearly.
Solution
# Solution Alignment
The prompt asks for an implementation-level answer. The safest way to present it is to define the state, maintain clear invariants, then walk through complexity and tests.
## Problem Restatement
Build functions for a food‑delivery analytics module. Data: - Restaurants: id, (x, y) location, menu mapping item -> price. - Orders: id, restaurantId, timestamp (Unix ms), line items: (item, quantity). Tasks: (a) Given the user's (x, y) and a target item, return the restaurant (s) offering the lowest price for that item and, among ties, the nearest by Euclidean distance (return id and distance). (b) For a time window [start, end), compute total revenue, order count, and average order value. (c) For a time window [start, end), return Top K orders by total price (id, total) and Top K items by quantity sold (item, quantity). Specify tie‑breaking rules, chosen data structures, and complexity.
## Recommended Approach
For one-time top-K, use a size-K min-heap or quickselect plus sorting the selected K. For streaming windows, maintain counts in a hash map plus a heap with lazy deletion or bucketed frequency structures when updates must be near O(1). Define deterministic tie-breaking.
## Correctness
The implementation should maintain an invariant after each loop or operation that directly matches the problem statement. At termination, that invariant implies the returned value has considered every valid candidate exactly once, or has preserved the required data-structure state after every API call.
## Complexity
One-time heap: O(n log k) time and O(k) space. Quickselect: expected O(n) plus O(k log k) to order output. Streaming complexity depends on window eviction and tie-breaking.
## Edge Cases and Tests
k = 0, k > n, duplicate values, ties, negative values, stale heap entries, and deterministic output ordering.