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Find First Anagram Occurrence

Last updated: May 9, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates proficiency in string processing, character-frequency analysis, and efficient substring search techniques, measuring competency in algorithmic reasoning and implementation for pattern matching.

  • medium
  • Databricks
  • Coding & Algorithms
  • Backend Engineer

Find First Anagram Occurrence

Company: Databricks

Role: Backend Engineer

Category: Coding & Algorithms

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Given two strings `text` and `pattern`, return the starting index of the first substring in `text` that is an anagram of `pattern`. If no such substring exists, return `-1`. A substring is an anagram of `pattern` if it has exactly the same character frequencies as `pattern`, possibly in a different order. Assume the input strings contain lowercase English letters unless otherwise specified. Example: ```text text = "cbaebabacd" pattern = "abc" ``` The substrings of length `3` are checked from left to right. The first substring that is an anagram of `"abc"` is `"cba"`, so the answer is `0`. Follow-up: Explain how your approach would scale if `text` were extremely large, streamed in chunks, or distributed across multiple machines.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates proficiency in string processing, character-frequency analysis, and efficient substring search techniques, measuring competency in algorithmic reasoning and implementation for pattern matching.

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Databricks
Apr 2, 2026, 12:00 AM
Backend Engineer
Technical Screen
Coding & Algorithms
2
0

Given two strings text and pattern, return the starting index of the first substring in text that is an anagram of pattern. If no such substring exists, return -1.

A substring is an anagram of pattern if it has exactly the same character frequencies as pattern, possibly in a different order.

Assume the input strings contain lowercase English letters unless otherwise specified.

Example:

text = "cbaebabacd"
pattern = "abc"

The substrings of length 3 are checked from left to right. The first substring that is an anagram of "abc" is "cba", so the answer is 0.

Follow-up: Explain how your approach would scale if text were extremely large, streamed in chunks, or distributed across multiple machines.

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