Binary Searchhard70 minBackend Engineer

Inventory Minimum Feasible Throughput

Backend Engineer signal: binary search on answer + monotonic predicate in a flash-sale inventory context. This is a ProdMatch-owned backend engineer drill, framed as a April 2026 Meta Marketplace Infra simulation, not a copied platform question.

Company context

Meta · Marketplace Infra

Freshness

April 2026

Product surface

flash-sale inventory

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

Question

For flash-sale inventory, choose the minimum processing rate so all stock updates finish before deadline. Each worker can process rate units per minute, rounded up per item.

Input

Work item sizes and deadline minutes.

Output

Minimum integer rate.

Constraints

1 <= items.length <= 200000
1 <= item size <= 1e9
Deadline is at least items.length.

Concepts

idempotency
queues
rate limiting
binary search on answer
monotonic predicate

sizes [3,6,7,11], deadline=8 -> 4

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?

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Common Mistakes

Use low + (high - low) // 2 to avoid overflow.
The predicate must be monotonic or binary search is invalid.

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