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Patreon·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen·Intermediate

Intermediate
Jun 2026

Summary

Follow-up round at Patreon for a software engineering role, focused entirely on complexity analysis of an org chart lookup problem from a previous session. Pretty deep dive for what felt like a continuation question.

Questions Asked (1)

Q1

Given your implementation of the org chart lookUp function (which returns role, number of direct reports, and total reports for a given name, built from a list of manager/direct_report pairs), analyze the time and space complexity. Cover both the preprocessing cost to build any data structures and the per-query cost of each lookUp call, using N for total employees and any relevant tree properties like depth or branching factor.

Algorithms & Data StructuresTechnical Trade-offs
Author's notes

This tripped me up more than I expected.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Start by restating the problem and the data structures you used (e.g., hash map for direct reports, adjacency list). Then analyze preprocessing time and space, followed by per-query time and space, using N for total employees and noting tree properties like depth (H) and branching factor (B). Finally, discuss trade-offs and possible optimizations.

Pro tip: Mention that the per-query cost depends on the subtree size of the queried node, which in the worst case (e.g., CEO) is O(N). Also, note that if queries are frequent, precomputing total reports for all nodes can reduce per-query time to O(1) at the cost of O(N) preprocessing.

1. Restate the problem and data structures

Briefly describe the lookUp function and the data structures you built (e.g., hash map from manager to list of direct reports, and a map from name to node).

2. Analyze preprocessing time and space

Building the data structures takes O(N) time and O(N) space, as each employee is processed once and stored.

3. Analyze per-query time

For a given name, looking up direct reports is O(1) if stored, but computing total reports requires traversing the subtree, which takes O(S) time where S is the number of reports in that subtree. In the worst case (root), this is O(N).

4. Analyze per-query space

The traversal uses O(H) space for recursion stack, where H is the height of the subtree (or O(N) in worst case for a skewed tree).

5. Discuss trade-offs and optimizations

Mention that precomputing total reports for all nodes during preprocessing can reduce per-query time to O(1) but increases preprocessing time to O(N) and space to O(N). Also, note that if the tree is balanced, H = O(log N), so per-query time is O(S) but S can still be O(N).

Key Points to Mention

  • Preprocessing: O(N) time and space to build the hash map and adjacency list.
  • Per-query direct reports: O(1) if stored in a map.
  • Per-query total reports: O(S) where S is the number of nodes in the subtree, worst-case O(N).
  • Space for per-query: O(H) for recursion stack, where H is the height of the subtree.
  • Trade-off: Precomputing total reports for all nodes gives O(1) per query but O(N) preprocessing and space.
  • Tree properties: depth (H) and branching factor (B) affect traversal; balanced tree gives H = O(log N) but S can still be O(N).

AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.