Implement ad matching and delivery routing

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Quick Overview

Implement ad matching and delivery routing 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.

Implement ad matching and delivery routing

Company: Amazon

Role: Software Engineer

Category: Coding & Algorithms

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Part A: Implement a data structure for an ad-matching service that supports add(campaign), remove(campaign), and match(request), where a request has attributes (e.g., location, device, interests) and campaigns specify targeting predicates and budgets. Optimize for fast matching and frequent updates; discuss complexity and trade-offs. Part B: Given a weighted road graph with nonnegative edges, a depot, and N delivery stops, implement plan_route(graph, depot, stops) to produce a near-optimal route. Compare exact versus heuristic approaches (e.g., shortest paths plus TSP heuristics), analyze complexity, and handle practical constraints such as capacity or time windows.

Overview: Implement ad matching and delivery routing 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.

Read the full Amazon Software Engineer interview experience this question came from

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 Part A: Implement a data structure for an ad-matching service that supports add(campaign), remove(campaign), and match(request), where a request has attributes (e.g., location, device, interests) and campaigns specify targeting predicates and budgets. Optimize for fast matching and frequent updates; discuss complexity and trade-offs. Part B: Given a weighted road graph with nonnegative edges, a depot, and N delivery stops, implement plan_route(graph, depot, stops) to produce a near-optimal route. Compare exact versus heuristic approaches (e.g., shortest paths plus TSP heuristics), analyze complexity, and handle practical constraints such as capacity or time windows. ## Recommended Approach Model the states explicitly and use BFS for unweighted shortest paths, Dijkstra for weighted non-negative paths, or topological DP for DAGs. Track visited states at the right granularity so cycles do not cause repeated work. ## 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 BFS is O(V + E) time and O(V) space for a standard graph. Expanded-state problems multiply those bounds by the number of state dimensions. ## Edge Cases and Tests Disconnected graph, source equals target, cycles, duplicate edges, unreachable target, and whether the answer counts nodes, edges, moves, or transfers.
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Jul 16, 2025
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Implement ad matching and delivery routing

Part A: Implement a data structure for an ad-matching service that supports add(campaign), remove(campaign), and match(request), where a request has attributes (e.g., location, device, interests) and campaigns specify targeting predicates and budgets. Optimize for fast matching and frequent updates; discuss complexity and trade-offs. Part B: Given a weighted road graph with nonnegative edges, a depot, and N delivery stops, implement plan_route(graph, depot, stops) to produce a near-optimal route. Compare exact versus heuristic approaches (e.g., shortest paths plus TSP heuristics), analyze complexity, and handle practical constraints such as capacity or time windows.

Clarifying Questions to Ask Guidance

  • Clarify input sizes, value ranges, mutability, return format, and tie-breaking.
  • State the target time and space complexity before coding.
  • Call out edge cases such as empty inputs, duplicates, invalid values, overflow, and boundary sizes.

What a Strong Answer Covers Guidance

  • A clear algorithm with the right data structures and enough pseudocode or code-level detail to implement it.
  • A correctness argument that explains why the algorithm covers all required cases.
  • Time and space complexity, plus at least one alternative approach when relevant.
  • Focused tests for normal cases, edge cases, and failure modes.

Follow-up Questions Guidance

  • How would the approach change if the input were streaming or too large for memory?
  • What invariants would you assert in production code?
  • Which tests would catch off-by-one, duplicate, or tie-breaking bugs?

Submit Your Answer to Earn 20XP

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