The accumulation part is where I almost messed up.
Start by clarifying the API contract, including pagination, error handling, and termination conditions. Then outline a solution that uses a hash map to accumulate rankings for duplicate story names, filters based on the offset threshold, and sorts the results in descending order. Finally, discuss edge cases and potential optimizations.
Pro tip: Emphasize the importance of handling API failures gracefully and ensuring the loop terminates correctly, as this demonstrates production-level thinking. Also, mention that you would consider the time and space complexity of your solution.
Ask questions to understand the get_story() API: Does it return a single story or a batch? How does pagination work? What is the structure of a story object? What are the error conditions?
Choose a hash map to accumulate rankings for duplicate story names, with the story name as key and the total ranking as value. Plan to collect at least 5 stories, possibly more if duplicates are encountered.
Write a loop that repeatedly calls get_story() until at least 5 unique stories are collected or the API indicates no more data. Handle potential errors and avoid infinite loops.
After collection, filter out stories whose ranking is below the offset threshold. Then sort the remaining stories by ranking in descending order.
Walk through edge cases such as duplicate stories, API failures, and insufficient stories. Discuss time and space complexity and possible optimizations.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.