Article Views I
A easy-tier problem at 77% community acceptance, tagged with Database. Reported in interviews at Wipro and 4 others.
Article Views I is a database problem that catches candidates off-guard because it looks trivial until you hit edge cases on the live assessment. The 77% acceptance rate masks a common mistake: most people write a query that works on the sample but fails when an article gets multiple views from the same user. Wipro, Deloitte, TCS, Bloomberg, and Microsoft have all asked this one. The trick is deceptively simple, but you need to spot it in real time. If you freeze during the OA, StealthCoder surfaces the working solution invisible to the proctor.
Companies that ask "Article Views I"
Article Views I is the kind of problem that decides whether you pass. StealthCoder reads the problem on screen and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Invisible to screen share. The proctor sees nothing. Built by an Amazon engineer who realized the OA tests how well you memorized 200 problems, not how well you code.
Get StealthCoderThe problem forces you to think like a database engine, not a coder. You're looking for readers who viewed the same article more than once, and the trap is writing a join that doesn't filter for duplicates correctly. Most candidates either miss the self-join pattern or return results they shouldn't. The gotcha is that you need to count distinct viewers per article, not just count rows. Standard SQL constructs like GROUP BY and HAVING work, but you have to apply them in the exact right order. If you blank on the logic during the OA and haven't drilled self-joins recently, StealthCoder executes the correct query in seconds while the proctor sees nothing.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Article Views I recycles across companies for a reason. It's easy-tier, and most candidates blank under the timer. StealthCoder is the hedge: an AI overlay invisible during screen share. It reads the problem and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Built by an Amazon engineer who realized the OA tests how well you memorized 200 problems, not how well you code. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Article Views I interview FAQ
Is Article Views I really an easy problem?+
Yes, by difficulty rating, but the 77% acceptance rate shows real candidates miss the self-join or filtering logic. It's easy once you see the pattern. On a live OA with time pressure, the pattern isn't obvious. That's why it trips people up.
What's the core trick I need to know?+
You need a self-join to find users who viewed the same article multiple times, then filter and return the distinct reader IDs. The mistake is forgetting to deduplicate or joining wrong. It's not a hard pattern once you've seen it once.
Do big companies like Microsoft still ask this?+
Yes. Microsoft, Bloomberg, and the others in the top five still ask it. It's simple enough to code fast, hard enough to trip you up if you're rusty on SQL syntax and self-joins.
How does this relate to the Database topic?+
It's a pure SQL problem. You're writing a query, not code. The skill tested is joining tables correctly and using GROUP BY with filtering. Core database fundamentals.
Should I memorize the solution?+
No. Understand the self-join pattern and why deduplication matters. Memorizing helps you spot it faster on OA day, but the real edge is knowing where the query breaks if you write it wrong.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Article Views I" on LeetCode →