Minimum Canisters to Top Up an Exact Target

Company: Airbnb

Role: Machine Learning Engineer

Category: Coding & Algorithms

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's grasp of dynamic programming, specifically the unbounded knapsack (coin change) pattern for finding the minimum number of items from an unlimited supply that sum to an exact target. It tests the ability to define subproblems, handle infeasible cases, and reconstruct an optimal combination, making it a common way to assess algorithmic problem-solving in coding interviews.