DSA · Engineering Foundry challenge level: Intermediate

Overlap-Aware Capacity Planner

Compute whether scheduled workloads exceed a shared capacity and return the first violating time range with useful evidence.

All challengesSuggested practice time: 60 minutes

Original prompt

What you are building

Given half-open workload intervals [start, end) with positive capacity demands and a fixed system capacity, design an algorithm that reports every maximal time range where total demand exceeds capacity. For each range, include the peak demand and the workload IDs active at the first violation point.

Engineering Foundry originalNo company association

Deliverables

An algorithm with clearly defined event ordering.
Complexity analysis in terms of workloads and returned violations.
Handling of ties, zero-length input, and touching intervals.
Implementation considerations for tracking active IDs.
Test cases covering nested, disjoint, and simultaneous intervals.

Constraints

Intervals use half-open semantics.
A workload ID is unique within an input set.
Do not iterate across every minute in the time domain.
Output ranges must be maximal and sorted.

Success criteria

Start/end tie ordering preserves half-open semantics.
The algorithm scales with input size rather than coordinate range.
Returned ranges merge continuous violation periods correctly.
Active-ID evidence is accurate at the first violating point.

Suggested workflow

Define interval and violation semantics.
Transform a small example into ordered events.
Decide how demand and active IDs change at a shared timestamp.
Derive output-range construction and complexity.
Attack the design with ties and nested intervals.

Attempt before reveal

Build your deliverable independently.

Use the prompt, constraints, and workflow first. Guidance offers considerations and questions - not a canonical solution.

Reveal guidanceDirections and questions to test

Questions to test

A sweep-line representation can avoid dependence on the size of the time coordinate.
At the same timestamp, applying ending events before starting events can encode half-open intervals.
Consider the cost of copying active IDs and whether evidence is needed only when a violation begins.

Reveal common mistakesFailure patterns worth checking

Iterating minute by minute.
Processing starts before ends at a shared boundary.
Returning fragmented ranges for one continuous violation.
Ignoring the output cost of materializing active IDs.

Reveal stretch goalsOptional ways to extend the deliverable

Support incremental insertion and removal of workloads.
Return the minimal set of workloads whose removal restores capacity.

Optional solution worksheet

Prepare your approach for discussion.

Capture your reasoning, then copy a plain-text summary you control.

Session only - not saved.Refreshing or leaving this page clears every worksheet field and self-review choice. Nothing is uploaded or officially submitted.

Approach summary

Key decision

Important tradeoff

Failure mode or edge case

Validation or testing plan

Reflection

Optional solution URLThis link remains in the current browser session and is included only if you copy the summary.

Nothing is sent when you copy.

Optional community discussion

Compare reasoning, not rankings.

Discuss this challenge in the Engineering Foundry community if you choose. Share your own work, explain assumptions, critique ideas rather than people, and remove confidential or proprietary material.

Discuss this challenge

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DSA · Engineering Foundry challenge level: Intermediate

Overlap-Aware Capacity Planner

Compute whether scheduled workloads exceed a shared capacity and return the first violating time range with useful evidence.

All challengesSuggested practice time: 60 minutes

Original prompt

What you are building

Engineering Foundry originalNo company association

Deliverables

An algorithm with clearly defined event ordering.
Complexity analysis in terms of workloads and returned violations.
Handling of ties, zero-length input, and touching intervals.
Implementation considerations for tracking active IDs.
Test cases covering nested, disjoint, and simultaneous intervals.

Constraints

Intervals use half-open semantics.
A workload ID is unique within an input set.
Do not iterate across every minute in the time domain.
Output ranges must be maximal and sorted.

Success criteria

Start/end tie ordering preserves half-open semantics.
The algorithm scales with input size rather than coordinate range.
Returned ranges merge continuous violation periods correctly.
Active-ID evidence is accurate at the first violating point.

Suggested workflow

Define interval and violation semantics.
Transform a small example into ordered events.
Decide how demand and active IDs change at a shared timestamp.
Derive output-range construction and complexity.
Attack the design with ties and nested intervals.

Attempt before reveal

Build your deliverable independently.

Use the prompt, constraints, and workflow first. Guidance offers considerations and questions - not a canonical solution.

Reveal guidanceDirections and questions to test

Questions to test

A sweep-line representation can avoid dependence on the size of the time coordinate.
At the same timestamp, applying ending events before starting events can encode half-open intervals.
Consider the cost of copying active IDs and whether evidence is needed only when a violation begins.

Reveal common mistakesFailure patterns worth checking

Iterating minute by minute.
Processing starts before ends at a shared boundary.
Returning fragmented ranges for one continuous violation.
Ignoring the output cost of materializing active IDs.

Reveal stretch goalsOptional ways to extend the deliverable

Support incremental insertion and removal of workloads.
Return the minimal set of workloads whose removal restores capacity.

Optional solution worksheet

Prepare your approach for discussion.

Capture your reasoning, then copy a plain-text summary you control.

Session only - not saved.Refreshing or leaving this page clears every worksheet field and self-review choice. Nothing is uploaded or officially submitted.

Approach summary

Key decision

Important tradeoff

Failure mode or edge case

Validation or testing plan

Reflection

Optional solution URLThis link remains in the current browser session and is included only if you copy the summary.

Nothing is sent when you copy.

Optional community discussion

Compare reasoning, not rankings.

Discuss this challenge

Overlap-Aware Capacity Planner

What you are building

Deliverables

Constraints

Success criteria

Suggested workflow

Build your deliverable independently.

Questions to test

DSA deliverable self-review

Prepare your approach for discussion.

Compare reasoning, not rankings.

Overlap-Aware Capacity Planner

What you are building

Deliverables

Constraints

Success criteria

Suggested workflow

Build your deliverable independently.

Questions to test

DSA deliverable self-review

Prepare your approach for discussion.

Compare reasoning, not rankings.