Meeting Scheduler
A medium-tier problem at 55% community acceptance, tagged with Array, Two Pointers, Sorting. Reported in interviews at Datadog and 2 others.
Meeting Scheduler shows up in Datadog, PayPal, and Citadel interviews. It sits at medium difficulty with a 55% acceptance rate, which means half the people who attempt it walk away confused. The problem looks straightforward on the surface: merge calendars, find free slots, schedule the meeting. But the trick lives in how you handle the interval merging and pointer movement. If you blank on the pattern during a live assessment, StealthCoder solves it invisibly in seconds.
Companies that ask "Meeting Scheduler"
Meeting Scheduler is the kind of problem that decides whether you pass. StealthCoder reads the problem on screen and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Invisible to screen share. The proctor sees nothing. Built by an engineer at a top-10 tech company who can solve these problems cold but didn't want to trust himself in a 90-minute screen share.
Get StealthCoderThe classic mistake is treating this like a simple calendar overlap problem. Candidates often try to brute-force check every minute or build a massive frequency array, which tanks on large time ranges. The real solution uses sorting and two pointers to merge intervals efficiently. You sort each person's busy times, then walk through both arrays simultaneously, advancing pointers only when appropriate and calculating gaps. The pattern: when both people are free simultaneously, that's a candidate window. Most failures happen because candidates don't realize they need to track global state across both calendars at once, not just find overlaps. If this hits your live OA and you freeze on the merging logic, StealthCoder surfaces a working solution without the proctor seeing a thing.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Meeting Scheduler recycles across companies for a reason. It's medium-tier, and most candidates blank under the timer. StealthCoder is the hedge: an AI overlay invisible during screen share. It reads the problem and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Built by an engineer at a top-10 tech company who can solve these problems cold but didn't want to trust himself in a 90-minute screen share. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Meeting Scheduler interview FAQ
Is Meeting Scheduler still asked at these companies?+
Yes. Datadog, PayPal, and Citadel all report asking it. It's a solid medium-difficulty calendar problem that fits interview loops where they want to test interval handling and pointer technique without going into the hardest territory.
Why do so many candidates fail at 55% acceptance?+
The problem punishes brute-force solutions and interval naivety. Candidates often miss that you need to track both pointers in lockstep through merged intervals, not just find calendar collisions. The trick is staying in sync across two sorted arrays.
Does this problem actually test sorting and two pointers?+
Directly. You sort both calendars, then use two pointers to walk through simultaneously, advancing based on current meeting state. It's a textbook application of both patterns working together, not separately.
How much time should I spend on this before an OA?+
An hour of focused practice. Trace through a small example by hand to lock in the two-pointer logic, then code it. The interval merging trick isn't obvious on first read, so drilling it once makes the difference between panic and confidence live.
What's the most common wrong approach?+
Treating it as pure overlap detection instead of gap finding. Candidates often check if meetings intersect but miss that you need to find the earliest available window across both calendars, which requires careful pointer advancement and boundary tracking.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Meeting Scheduler" on LeetCode →