Graphsmedium45 minData Engineer

Metrics Dependency DAG Recovery

Data Engineer signal: topological sort + cycle detection in a metric dependency graph context. This is a ProdMatch-owned data engineer drill, framed as a March 2026 Udaan Analytics Platform simulation, not a copied platform question.

Company context

Udaan · Analytics Platform

Freshness

March 2026

Product surface

metric dependency graph

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

Question

You own metric dependency graph for a Data Engineer loop. Given metrics and directed dependencies between them, return a valid execution order. If a cycle exists, return an empty list and identify that the rollout is blocked.

Input

n nodes labelled 0..n-1 and dependency pairs [before, after].

Output

A valid order of all nodes, or [] when dependencies contain a cycle.

Constraints

1 <= n <= 200000
0 <= dependencies.length <= 400000
The graph may be disconnected.

Concepts

stream windows
watermarks
lineage DAGs
topological sort
cycle detection
dependency graph

metrics: 4, deps: [[0,1],[0,2],[2,3]] -> [0,1,2,3] or [0,2,1,3]

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

Mark visited when enqueueing, not after repeated dequeue.
Do not ignore disconnected components if the product surface can have them.

Next Similar Problems

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