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Coinbase Backend Engineer Coding Questions

51 practice questions for Coinbase Backend Engineer interviews

Coinbase backend engineer interviews typically focus on APIs, databases, system design, concurrency, caching, and data structures.

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coding Medium Verified Question #1

1. Generate NFT


Category: String coding problem
# Question You are designing an NFT generation engine. You are given a set of Traits, where each trait has a name and a list of possible...
Input: List
Output: Array
coding Medium Verified Question #2

2. Blockchain Mining


Category: Dynamic programming coding problem
# Question You are building a block construction module for a blockchain node. The goal is to select a subset of pending transactions to include in...
Input: Graph (nodes and edges)
Output: Computed result
coding Medium Verified Question #3

3. Crypto Trading System Stream


Category: String coding problem
# Question Design a crypto trading system that manages a stream of orders. The system should support various operations like placing, pausing,...
Input: Array of strings
Output: Computed result
coding Hard Verified Question #4

4. Design Iterators


Category: Array coding problem
# Question For this problem, you will be designing a series of different iterator classes. This problem is split into multiple related parts that...
Input: Array of integers
Output: Computed result
coding Medium Verified Question #5

5. Food Delivery System


Category: Trie-based coding problem
# Question For this problem, you will be designing a food delivery system. This problem is split into three related parts, evolving from basic data...
Input: List
Output: Computed result
coding Hard Verified Question #6

6. Transaction System


Category: Tree coding problem
For this problem, you will be designing a system to handle financial transactions and account balances. This problem is split into three related...
Input: List
Output: Integer
coding Hard Verified Question #7

7. OA[CodeSignal] Cloud File Storage System


Category: Graph coding problem
# Question Your task is to implement a simple in-memory cloud storage system that maps objects (files) to their metadata (name, size, etc.). You...
Input: Graph (nodes and edges)
Output: Array
coding Hard Verified Question #8

8. OA[CodeSignal] Design Banking System


Category: Graph coding problem
# Question Design a banking system that supports account management, transactions, and various financial operations.
Input: Graph (nodes and edges)
Output: Computed result
coding Hard Verified Question #9

9. Capital Gains Tax Calculator


Category: String coding problem
You are given a chronologically sorted list of stock transactions. Each transaction is a list of strings in the format `[<timestamp>, <type>,...
Input: Array of strings
Output: Computed result
coding Medium Verified Question #10

10. Service Log Aggregator


Category: Trie-based coding problem
A distributed system emits log entries from multiple services and worker threads. Each log entry is a colon-separated string in the format...
Input: Array
Output: Computed result
coding Hard Verified Question #11

11. OA [CodeSignal] Knowledge Base System


Category: Graph coding problem
Design and implement a personal knowledge base called KnowledgeBaseSystem that stores articles with CRUD operations. The system operates entirely...
Input: Graph (nodes and edges)
Output: Computed result
coding Medium Verified Question #12

12. OA [CodeSignal] Workspace Tracker


Category: Interval-based coding problem
Build a system to track desk workers at a shared office space. The system records when each worker enters and leaves and computes how long they have...
Input: String
Output: Array
coding Hard Verified Question #13

13. Transaction Query Engine


Category: String coding problem
Design a system to filter and paginate a list of transaction records. Each record is a list of strings in the format `[timestamp, id, userId,...
Input: Array of strings
Output: Computed result
coding Medium Verified Question #14

14. Exchange Rate Finder


Category: String coding problem
You are given a set of currency exchange relationships. Each relationship specifies a direct exchange rate between two currencies. Rates are...
Input: List
Output: Computed result
coding Hard Verified Question #15

15. Order Matching Engine


Category: String coding problem
You are managing a cryptocurrency order book. The book holds buy and sell orders placed by traders. - A buy order indicates the maximum price a...
Input: String
Output: Computed result
coding Hard Verified Question #16

16. Account Transfer System


Category: String coding problem
You are given a list of fund transfer instructions and a set of accounts with initial balances. Each transfer moves a fixed percentage of the...
Input: List
Output: Computed result
coding Hard Verified Question #17

17. Restaurant Delivery Network


Category: String coding problem
You are building a food discovery platform. Given a user's location, a list of restaurants with their coordinates, and a menu of items with prices,...
Input: List
Output: Computed result
coding Hard caching #1

1. [OA] Caching — Implement an in-memory Rate Limiter system

Coinbase requires a rate limiter to prevent excessive requests to its APIs, ensuring fair usage across users.
Design a RateLimiter class that limits the number of calls to a specified maxRequests over a time period of timeWindow. If the limit is exceeded, new requests should receive an error response.
Method signature:
- def is_request_allowed(user_id: str, timestamp: int) -> bool: Returns True if the request is allowed, False if it exceeds the limit.
Example 1:
Input: user_id = 'user1', timestamp = 1
Output: True
Explanation: 1 request is within limit.
Example 2:
Input: user_id = 'user1', timestamp = 6
Output: False
Explanation: On timestamp 6, user has exceeded the max requests within the specified time window.
Constraints:
- 1 <= maxRequests <= 100
- 1 <= timeWindow <= 1000
coding Hard graph #2

2. [OA] Graph Traversal — Implement a transaction graph for fraud detection

Coinbase needs a system to detect fraudulent transactions by visualizing relationships in a transaction graph.
Implement a method that returns all fraudulent transaction paths in a directed graph where nodes represent accounts and edges represent transactions. You must return all paths having a maximum depth of k.
Method signature:
- def find_fraudulent_paths(graph: Dict[str, List[str]], max_depth: int) -> List[List[str]]: Returns a list of lists containing all possible paths that are at most of length max_depth.
Example 1:
Input: graph = {'A': ['B', 'C'], 'B': ['D'], 'C': ['D'], 'D': []}, max_depth = 2
Output: [['A', 'B'], ['A', 'C'], ['A', 'B', 'D'], ['A', 'C', 'D']]
Explanation: Transactions are depicted as paths based on the graph's depth constraints.
Example 2:
Input: graph = {'A': ['B'], 'B': ['C'], 'C': []}, max_depth = 1
Output: [['A', 'B'], ['A']]
Explanation: Only paths staying within the given maximum depth are represented.
Constraints:
- 1 <= len(graph) <= 100
- 1 <= max_depth <= 10

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