Meeting Time
Reported by candidates from Snowflake's online assessment. Pattern, common pitfall, and the honest play if you blank under the timer.
Snowflake asked this in February and it's a classic interval-collision problem dressed up as a calendar question. You're given arrays of meeting times and need to find a slot where everyone can meet, or merge overlaps, or count conflicts. The trick is sorting and then sweeping through once. If you blank on the exact logic during the OA, StealthCoder will show you the pattern in real time so you're not rebuilding from scratch.
Pattern and pitfall
Meeting Time is fundamentally an interval-merging or availability-checking problem. Sort the meetings by start time, then iterate through and either merge overlapping intervals or check for gaps. The pitfall is off-by-one errors on boundary conditions and forgetting to handle the case where meetings are back-to-back versus actually overlapping. Most candidates waste time on edge cases instead of nailing the core sort-and-sweep logic first. During the live OA, if you get stuck on the exact condition for merging, StealthCoder gives you the structure so you can focus on syntax and testing.
StealthCoder is the hedge for the one pattern you didn't drill. It runs invisibly during the screen share.
You can drill Meeting Time cold, or you can hedge it. StealthCoder runs invisibly during screen share and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. The proctor sees the IDE. They don't see what's behind it. If you're reading this with an OA window open, you're who this was built for.
Get StealthCoderRelated leaked OAs
This OA pattern shows up on LeetCode as merge intervals. If you have time before the OA, drill that.
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Make sure you actually pass Snowflake's OA.
Snowflake reuses patterns across OAs. If you're reading this with an OA window open, you're who this was built for. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Meeting Time FAQ
Is this about merging intervals or finding a free slot?+
Without the full problem text it could be either. If it's merge intervals, sort and combine overlaps. If it's finding free time, sort, sweep, and find gaps. The core technique is identical: sort by start time, then iterate once. Get the sort right and the rest flows.
What's the most common mistake on this problem?+
Forgetting to check if the next meeting starts before the current one ends. Also, candidates often don't handle meetings that start exactly when another ends. Read the problem carefully: does [1,3] and [3,5] overlap or not. That determines your merge condition.
How do I prepare for this in 48 hours?+
Know how to sort an array of pairs by the first element. Practice merging two intervals, then extend that to a list. Write out the condition for overlap clearly before you code. Then do one full example by hand and trace through your logic.
Is this a hard problem or medium?+
Medium. The logic isn't complex, but the details matter. You need to be precise with comparison operators and edge cases. The time complexity is O(n log n) for sorting, O(n) for the sweep. Space is O(1) or O(n) depending on whether you modify in place.
What if I see this and don't recognize the pattern immediately?+
Start with a brute force approach on paper. Ask yourself: can I sort this data in a useful way? Will iterating once give me the answer? If yes to both, you're on an interval problem. Sort first, think second.