Binary Searchmedium45 minFull Stack Developer

Approvals Minimum Feasible Throughput

Full Stack Developer signal: binary search on answer + monotonic predicate in a approval workflow context. This is a ProdMatch-owned full stack engineer drill, framed as a May 2026 InMobi Workflow Platform simulation, not a copied platform question.

Company context

InMobi · Workflow Platform

Freshness

May 2026

Product surface

approval workflow

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

Question

For approval workflow, choose the minimum processing rate so all approvals 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

workflow graphs
API pagination
cache invalidation
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?

Your rating tunes when this problem shows up again.

Common Mistakes

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

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