Minimum Path Length Through a Grid With One Allowed Cell Conversion
Company: Amazon
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Online Assessment
Overview: This question evaluates a candidate's grasp of shortest-path search on grids, specifically breadth-first search extended with a limited state budget for modifying obstacles. It tests the ability to reason about state-space expansion, where each cell must be tracked alongside how many obstacle conversions remain. Such problems are common in coding interviews to assess practical application of graph traversal beyond textbook BFS.
