Coding interview questionMedium
AmazonMeta

Longest Run of Non-Repeating Characters

Given a string, find the length of the longest contiguous substring in which no character repeats.

1. Problem Statement

You are given a string. Find the length of the longest contiguous substring that contains no repeated characters.

2. Live Coding Format

Work in the provided coding workspace while explaining your decisions to the live interviewer. Validation may use inline tests, examples, comments, or a verbal walkthrough.

3. Key Focus Areas

  • 1
    Problem clarification and contract
  • 2
    Approach exploration and optimality
  • 3
    Think-aloud communication and pacing
  • 4
    Implementation correctness
  • 5
    Code quality and language fluency
  • 6
    Tests and dry run
  • 7
    Debugging and self-correction
  • 8
    Complexity analysis
  • 9
    Follow-up performance

4. What Strong Candidates Should Demonstrate

  • Clarify character set, case sensitivity, and empty-string behavior before coding.
  • Explain a brute-force baseline and improve it to a linear-time solution.
  • Think aloud while implementing readable, correct code.
  • Validate with explicit expected outputs and a top-to-bottom dry run.
  • Analyze time and space complexity and handle a bounded follow-up modification.

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Practice this problem in the live coding workspace while the interviewer probes your clarification, implementation, trade-offs, and validation.

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Core Concepts

Hidden because they name the technique, which a real interviewer would not tell you.

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StringsSliding WindowHash MapsComplexity Analysis

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