Code Room
CodingHardcod-g915
Subject Shortest pathLevel Senior–Staff~35 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

You start at the top-left cell of a grid of heights and want to reach the bottom-right. You may move up, down, left, or right. A route's 'effort' is the maximum absolute height difference between two consecutive cells along the route. Return the minimum effort required to travel from top-left to bottom-right. Grid dimensions are at least 1x1; a 1x1 grid needs effort 0.

Implement
minimum_effort_path(heights: list[list[int]]) → int
Examples
in[[[1,2,2],[3,8,2],[5,3,5]]]out2
What a strong answer looks like

State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.

Vibe coding: describe the solution in plain language (or narrate it) and the coach grades your approach. Generating runnable code from your description is coming next.

Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.