SIG (Susquehanna) Interview Questions

Given a standard shuffled deck of cards, you draw a card from the top. How much would you bet that the next card is higher than the one you drew? Please discuss bet sizing strategies and whether the order of the cards matters.

You have $100 and receive an additional $100 to play a casino game where you bet on flips of a fair coin, with a 4:5 payout. You are required to bet a total of at least $500 before you can cash out. How do you maximize your expected earnings?

A can finish a job in 100 minutes, and B can finish the same job in 120 minutes. A and B work together on the job, but after 40 minutes, C comes to help them, and they finish the job in an additional 10 minutes. How long would it take C to finish the job by himself?

What is the expected number of times you need to roll a die to get a 6?

What is the fair price to enter a game where you win the amount shown on a single rolled die?

Person A completes a job in 100 minutes. Person B completes the same job in 120 minutes. They work together for 30 minutes, then person C joins. Together, the three complete the job in another 20 minutes. How long would it take for person C to complete the job alone?

Given an unsorted array of integers, find the k-th largest element in the array.

1. How would you process data by reading from a file in C++? 2. What is a vector in C++ and what is the difference between a vector and an array? Discuss memory management differences. 3. How would you debug a multithreaded implementation in C++? 4. How would you implement std::shared_ptr from scratch in C++?

What is garbage collection? How is it done in Java?

Why do we use a hashtable, and what is its time complexity?

Implement a stack data structure in a programming language of your choice (e.g., C#), including all standard methods such as push(), pop(), and top(). The stack should accept only 12-bit integer numbers as input, and all exceptions should be handled properly. Complete this task within one hour.

Given a matrix, if an element is 0, set its entire row and column to 0. Modify the matrix in place.

Reverse a string.

Given two strings, return the characters that are common to both.

Given a CSV file where each row contains: person name, car name, miles driven since last fill-up (float), gallons filled at this fill-up (integer), and the fill-up date, write a program to calculate the miles per gallon (MPG) for each car a person has driven during a specific date range (inclusive). Implement a function GetRangeMPG(PersonName, StartDate, EndDate) that returns a list of objects containing (CarName, MPG), where MPG is calculated as total miles driven divided by total gallons filled within the date range.

Check if a given string is a permutation of a palindrome without using any additional data structures.

What is Object-Oriented Programming? Develop an algorithm to reverse a string.

A painting has an 80% chance of being fake. If it is real, it is worth $500,000; if fake, it is worth $10,000. The seller asks for $120,000. Based on this information, should you buy the painting?

Given the probabilities of an event occurring on each of two days, find the probability that the event occurs on at least one of those days.

In a population, 50% do not smoke, 20% are light smokers, and 30% are heavy smokers. Heavy smokers are twice as likely to die as light smokers, and light smokers are twice as likely to die as non-smokers. What is the probability that a person was a heavy smoker given that they have died?

What is the expected value of a fair six-sided die?

What is the probability that a group of people sitting around a round table are seated in strictly ascending or strictly descending order of age?

How much would you pay for the option to reroll a die, given that you receive the dollar value of the number you roll, and can choose to reroll once if you wish?

You have 25 horses and a race track with 5 lanes. Each race can race at most 5 horses at a time, and you cannot use a stopwatch. What is the minimum number of races required to determine the fastest three horses?

A deck contains ten cards: two 10s, two Js, two Qs, two Ks, and two As. You are dealt five cards without replacement from the deck. Compute the expected number of pairs.

What is the expected number of fair coin flips required to get two consecutive heads (i.e., 'HH') for the first time?

What is the probability of obtaining 3 heads in a row when tossing an unbiased coin 5 times?

What is the probability of rolling two sixes with a pair of standard six-sided dice?

There are two fair dice. For each die, you roll it again if you do not get a 6. Calculate the expected number of times you get a 6 on die 1.

Can you reverse a string?