Google New Grad OA: Token Scores and Four-Digit Codes With Sum S

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: OA completed
Report time: October 2025

The OA contained two questions and hidden test cases. The candidate specifically warned about equality edge cases.

Question 1: score tokens on a board

An integer array points and a string tokens describe N cells. tokens[i] is T when a token occupies the cell and E when it is empty.

The score equals:

1. The sum of points[i] for every token cell.
2. One extra point for every adjacent pair of token cells.

Example: points = [3,4,5,2,3], tokens = TEETT returns 9: eight cell points plus one adjacent-token bonus.

Practice: Score Points

Question 2: four-digit codes with digit sum S

Consider every four-digit code over digits 0 through 9, including leading zeroes. Given S, return how many codes have digit sum S. The constraint is 0 <= S <= 36.

Examples include S = 4 -> 35 and S = 2 -> 10.

The screenshot's printed list for S = 35 repeats 9899 while claiming four codes. That visible source typo is not treated as a distinct code.

Practice: Count Four-Digit Codes With Sum S