Binary Searchhard70 minMobile Engineer

Search Minimum Feasible Throughput

Mobile Engineer signal: binary search on answer + monotonic predicate in a on-device search context. This is a ProdMatch-owned mobile engineer drill, framed as a March 2026 Ola Mobile Search simulation, not a copied platform question.

Company context

Ola · Mobile Search

Freshness

March 2026

Product surface

on-device search

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

Question

For on-device search, choose the minimum processing rate so all tokens 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

offline sync
local cache
gesture streams
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.

Next Similar Problems

Sync Minimum Feasible Throughputmedium Feed Minimum Feasible Throughputmedium Cache Minimum Feasible Throughputmedium