Coding Assessment: Water Jug and System Design | Dataford Interview Questions

Tell me how you solved a coding assessment that included a water jug puzzle and a system design problem, and then how you handled SQL query questions and ORM alternatives.

For the coding portion, implement the water-jug algorithm. Given two jug capacities and a target volume, return the shortest sequence of jug states that reaches the target, or an empty list if it is impossible.

The function returns states as (amount_in_first_jug, amount_in_second_jug), beginning with (0, 0). A valid move fills, empties, or pours between jugs.

Constraints

1 <= capacity_a, capacity_b <= 10^4
0 <= target <= 10^4
The returned path must begin at (0, 0)
Each consecutive pair of states must represent one legal operation
Return the shortest valid path, or [] when the target is unreachable

Function Signature

def solve_water_jug(capacity_a, capacity_b, target):

Your question is Coding Assessment: Water Jug and System Design. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.

Problem

Tell me how you solved a coding assessment that included a water jug puzzle and a system design problem, and then how you handled SQL query questions and ORM alternatives.

The function returns states as (amount_in_first_jug, amount_in_second_jug), beginning with (0, 0). A valid move fills, empties, or pours between jugs.

Constraints

1 <= capacity_a, capacity_b <= 10^4
0 <= target <= 10^4
The returned path must begin at (0, 0)
Each consecutive pair of states must represent one legal operation
Return the shortest valid path, or [] when the target is unreachable

Function Signature

def solve_water_jug(capacity_a, capacity_b, target):

Your question is Coding Assessment: Water Jug and System Design. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.