Find Duplicate Files with a Hand-Written Directory Traversal

Quick Overview

Build a duplicate-file finder without recursive walking helpers. This exercise covers iterative directory traversal, bounded-memory content comparison, collision-safe verification, deterministic results, symlink and hard-link policy, I/O failures, and races when files change during a scan.

Find Duplicate Files with a Hand-Written Directory Traversal

Company: Snapchat

Role: Software Engineer

Category: Software Engineering Fundamentals

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Overview: Build a duplicate-file finder without recursive walking helpers. This exercise covers iterative directory traversal, bounded-memory content comparison, collision-safe verification, deterministic results, symlink and hard-link policy, I/O failures, and races when files change during a scan.

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Jul 21, 2026
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