Heap / Priority Queuehard70 minAI/ML Engineer

Eval Real-Time Top-K Prioritizer

AI/ML Engineer signal: heap + top-k in a LLM evaluation harness context. This is a ProdMatch-owned ai ml engineer drill, framed as a May 2026 Meesho AI Quality simulation, not a copied platform question.

Company context

Meesho · AI Quality

Freshness

May 2026

Product surface

LLM evaluation harness

ProdMatch interview simulation based on product-team patterns; not a claim of a real company question.

Question

Your AI Quality team needs a live top-k view for runs. Each update changes an item's score. Return the current top k item IDs after each update, ordered by score desc then ID asc.

Input

Initial scores, k, and update stream [id, delta].

Output

Top-k IDs after every update.

Constraints

1 <= items <= 200000
1 <= updates <= 200000
Scores can be negative.

Concepts

vector search
RAG retrieval
recommendation graphs
heap
top-k
streaming rank

scores: [5,1,3], k=2, update [1,+5] -> [1,0]

Approach

Try framing your own approach first. The 30 seconds you think before peeking is where learning happens.

Clean Solution

Reveal the approach first.

How well did you understand?

Your rating tunes when this problem shows up again.

Common Mistakes

Use a stable tie-breaker for equal scores.
Do not sort the full stream when k is small.

Next Similar Problems

Vector Real-Time Top-K Prioritizerhard GraphRAG Real-Time Top-K Prioritizerhard Recommend Real-Time Top-K Prioritizerhard