Can You Solve This Uber Scheduling Interview Question?

Can you solve a scheduling algorithm problem used in real Uber coding interviews? In this full-length mock coding interview, Rahman — a software engineer at Uber — walks through the Time Planner problem: given two people's availability slots and a meeting duration, find the earliest window where both can meet. This unedited coding interview covers the complete problem-solving arc from clarifying questions through brute force ideation to an optimized two-pointer solution. You'll see how to identify interval overlaps using max-of-starts and min-of-ends, handle edge cases like empty slots and exact-fit durations, and simplify your code by removing redundant conditional branches. The solution runs in O(n + m) time with O(1) space — exactly what a real interviewer expects. 0:00 Introduction 0:23 Problem statement: Time Planner scheduling algorithm 2:22 Clarifying assumptions — sorted inputs, disjoint intervals 10:17 Time and space complexity analysis 12:50 Live coding the two-pointer solution 22:00 Testing with edge cases — empty slots, exact duration, large gaps 32:25 Interviewer feedback and follow-up optimization Resources: - Interval List Intersections (LeetCode #986): https://leetcode.com/problems/interval-list-intersections/ - Meeting Scheduler (LeetCode #1229): https://leetcode.com/problems/meeting-scheduler/