Find Most K Element | Dataford Interview Questions

Dell PowerStore can produce large arrays of numeric telemetry values. Given an unsorted array, return the kth largest element, counting duplicate values as separate elements.

Design an algorithm that avoids sorting the entire array when k is relatively small.

Formal Specification

Implement find_kth_largest(nums, k):

Input nums: a non-empty list of integers.
Input k: an integer from 1 through len(nums).
Output: the integer that appears in position k when nums is ordered from largest to smallest.

You may modify nums unless your chosen approach does not require it. Do not return the index or the distinct kth largest value.

Constraints

1 <= nums.length <= 10^5
1 <= k <= nums.length
-10^9 <= nums[i] <= 10^9
Duplicate values count as separate elements

Function Signature

def find_kth_largest(nums, k):

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