Solve binary-search knapsack & graph shortest path
Company: Microsoft
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: Medium
Interview Round: Take-home Project
##### Question
Given a sorted list of items, design an efficient solution (using binary search) to achieve the target objective instead of a dynamic-programming knapsack approach. Given a weighted graph provided in a custom input format, build the graph and compute the shortest path between two nodes.
Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's ability to apply algorithmic optimization by using binary search instead of dynamic programming for a knapsack-style selection problem and to construct and compute shortest paths on a weighted graph from custom input.