LinkedIn Senior Software Engineer Phone Interview Experience and Questions

I recently interviewed for a Senior Software Engineer position at LinkedIn. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the

next round, but I wanted to share the questions and my experience to help others prep

I recently interviewed for a Senior Software Engineer position at LinkedIn. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the

next round, but I wanted to share the questions and my experience to help others preparing for similar roles. The Process: 1 Hour Technical Phone Screen Question 1: Minimum Steps to Open the Lock (BFS / Shortest Path)

Problem Statement: You are given a lock with 4 circular wheels. Each wheel has 10 slots: '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9'. The wheels can rotate freely and wrap around. For example, you can turn a '9' forward to become a '0', or turn a '0' backward to become a '9'. Each single move consists of turning exactly one wheel one slot forward or backward. The lock initially starts at the combination "0000". You are provided with: A list of deadends (array of strings). If the lock displays any combination present in this list, the wheels jam, and you can no longer make any moves. A target combination (string) that represents the code to open the lock. The Task: Write a function to return the minimum total number of turns required to reach the target combination from "0000". If it is impossible to reach the target without hitting a deadend,

return -1. Question 2: Inverse Nested List Weight Sum Problem Statement: You are given a nested list of integers. Each element in the list can either be a single integer or another nested list (which may contain further integers or lists). The depth of an integer is defined by how many lists it is nested inside. The maximum depth is the depth of the most deeply nested integer in the entire structure. The weight of each integer is calculated using the formula: Weight=MaximumDepth−CurrentDepth+1 The Task: Write a function to calculate the total sum of all integers in the list, where each integer is multiplied by its calculated weight. The solution needs to be highly optimized, ideally calculating the sum in a single pass without needing to traverse the list first just to find the maximum depth.

Example Breakdown:

Input: {1, {2, 2}, {2, {3, 2}}} Maximum Depth: 3 Calculation: The first 1 is at Depth 1. Its weight is (3−1+1)=3. Value: 1×3=3. The first {2, 2} are at Depth 2. Their weight is (3−2+1)=2. Value: (2+2)×2=8. The second 2 is at Depth 2. Its weight is (3−2+1)=2. Value: 2×2=4. The {3, 2} are at Depth 3. Their weight is (3−3+1)=1. Value: (3+2)×1=5. Total Output: 3+8+4+5=20. The Gap, according to my analysis: The interviewer was looking for the optimized "One-Pass"

approach (calculating the sum on the fly without needing max_depth beforehand). I wasn't able to derive that specific arithmetic trick during the interview.