Solve string merge and grid path tasks

Quick Overview

This multi-part question evaluates string manipulation and sequence merging, stateful shortest-path planning under resource constraints (health-aware grid pathfinding), and sliding-window optimization for arrays/strings within the Coding & Algorithms domain.

Solve string merge and grid path tasks

Company: Capital One

Role: Software Engineer

Category: Coding & Algorithms

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Take-home Project

##### Question Given two equal-length strings s1 and s2, create a new string by iterating i = 0 … n-1, comparing s1[i] with s2[n-1-i]: append s1[i]; if the two characters are identical append that character again, otherwise append s2[n-1-i]. Examples: s1 = "abc", s2 = "def" → "afcd"; s1 = "abp", s2 = "jda" → "aaaapj"; s1 = "abp", s2 = "abp" → "appa". Return the resulting string. Design an algorithm for a robot moving on a 2-D grid containing: walls (impassable), healing cells (+health), and monster cells (–health). Starting with a given health value, find the shortest path from start to goal such that the robot’s health never drops to 0 or negative. Output that shortest distance (or the path itself). Solve an array/string problem that requires a sliding-window technique to meet a given constraint (details unspecified in the notes).

Quick Answer: This multi-part question evaluates string manipulation and sequence merging, stateful shortest-path planning under resource constraints (health-aware grid pathfinding), and sliding-window optimization for arrays/strings within the Coding & Algorithms domain.

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Capital One
Jul 29, 2025, 8:05 AM
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Question

Given two equal-length strings s1 and s2, create a new string by iterating i = 0 … n-1, comparing s1[i] with s2[n-1-i]: append s1[i]; if the two characters are identical append that character again, otherwise append s2[n-1-i]. Examples: s1 = "abc", s2 = "def" → "afcd"; s1 = "abp", s2 = "jda" → "aaaapj"; s1 = "abp", s2 = "abp" → "appa". Return the resulting string. Design an algorithm for a robot moving on a 2-D grid containing: walls (impassable), healing cells (+health), and monster cells (–health). Starting with a given health value, find the shortest path from start to goal such that the robot’s health never drops to 0 or negative. Output that shortest distance (or the path itself). Solve an array/string problem that requires a sliding-window technique to meet a given constraint (details unspecified in the notes).

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