Verily Onsite Interview Coding Challenge: Fun with Doubles
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Completed an onsite for Verily pretty recently and got asked this pretty interesting problem in one of the rounds. ## Fun with Doubles ### Part 1 Given an array arr of integers, double each element
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Completed an onsite for Verily pretty recently and got asked this pretty interesting problem in one of the rounds. ## Fun with Doubles ### Part 1 Given an array arr of integers, double each element and concatenate. For example, [1, 2, 4] --> [1, 2, 4, 2, 4, 8] notice the pattern in the output? ### Part 2 Given an output that may or may not come from part 1, identify the inverse.
python [1, 2, 4, 2, 4, 8] --> [1, 2, 4] [4, 2, 8, 16] --> [2, 8] [1, 4] --> NO INVERSE
Reflection * Part 1 as you may expect is very straightforward. spend at most 5 minutes on coding it up * I sort of got stuck on the thought process for part 2. I think I had the idea of "pairing things up", but I had a tricky bug in my implementation * In hindsight, I realized that the implementation was really straightforward and I sort of overcomplicated it. Interviewer said that "I was pretty close and with minor updates, I would have gotten it" * 50/50 on if I'll move forward
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This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Verily Life Sciences. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Verily Life Sciences are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Verily Life Sciences interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Verily Life Sciences reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Verily Life Sciences Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Verily Life Sciences reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.