Traverse an Org Chart by Level
Problem Description
You are provided with an organization's reporting structure as a flat list of employee-manager relationships. It is guaranteed that there is exactly one root employee (the CEO) who has no manager.
Input Schema
Each employee record contains:
employee_id: intemployee_name: stringmanager_id: int | null(null for the CEO)
Task
- Tree Conversion: Transform the flat reporting structure into a tree data structure representing the organizational hierarchy.
- Level-Order Traversal: Return the complete organizational chart, ordered from the top-most level (CEO) down to the lowest level.
- Level Grouping: Each level must be presented in its entirety before proceeding to the next level.
Example Output Format
The output should be a list of lists, where each inner list represents a level in the hierarchy:
[[CEO], [VP1, VP2], [Mgr1, Mgr2, Mgr3], ...]
Discussion Points
Be prepared to discuss:
- The data structures chosen for representing the tree and intermediate results.
- The time and space complexity of your solution.
- Strategies for handling invalid input scenarios, specifically:
- Cycles in the reporting structure.
- Employees with missing managers (where
manager_idis not null but points to a non-existent employee). - The presence of multiple root employees (more than one employee with a null
manager_id).
AI interview prep
Core dilemma
The central engineering conflict is efficiently building a graph (which is ideally a tree) from a flat list, detecting and gracefully handling various graph-theoretic anomalies (cycles, disconnected components, multiple roots), and then performing a specific traversal (BFS/level-order) while optimizing for time and space given potentially large N.
3 tradeoffs and 3 stress tests locked
Interview prep
Unlock the interviewer X-Ray rubric, tradeoff matrix, stress tests, clarifying questions, and key concepts.
Traverse an Org Chart by Level
Problem Description
You are provided with an organization's reporting structure as a flat list of employee-manager relationships. It is guaranteed that there is exactly one root employee (the CEO) who has no manager.
Input Schema
Each employee record contains:
employee_id: intemployee_name: stringmanager_id: int | null(null for the CEO)
Task
- Tree Conversion: Transform the flat reporting structure into a tree data structure representing the organizational hierarchy.
- Level-Order Traversal: Return the complete organizational chart, ordered from the top-most level (CEO) down to the lowest level.
- Level Grouping: Each level must be presented in its entirety before proceeding to the next level.
Example Output Format
The output should be a list of lists, where each inner list represents a level in the hierarchy:
[[CEO], [VP1, VP2], [Mgr1, Mgr2, Mgr3], ...]
Discussion Points
Be prepared to discuss:
- The data structures chosen for representing the tree and intermediate results.
- The time and space complexity of your solution.
- Strategies for handling invalid input scenarios, specifically:
- Cycles in the reporting structure.
- Employees with missing managers (where
manager_idis not null but points to a non-existent employee). - The presence of multiple root employees (more than one employee with a null
manager_id).