What is Interview Forge?

Interview Forge helps you practice mock interviews, follow study plans, track career goals, review learning analytics, and prepare across 36 pages.

Median of Two Sorted Arrays at Apple — Interview Guide

How to approach Median of Two Sorted Arrays in a Apple interview: the optimal approach, what Apple interviewers look for, and company-specific tips.

Updated 2026-09HardBinary Search

The problem at Apple

Given two sorted arrays, find the median of the combined sorted array in O(log(min(m,n))) time.

Apple uses this problem to assess craft, detail, and domain depth. Expect Apple-specific follow-ups that tie the solution back to production reasoning and the company's engineering bar.

Key concepts

Binary search a partition point in the smaller array so the left half of the merged array contains exactly half the elements.
A valid partition has maxLeftA ≤ minRightB and maxLeftB ≤ minRightA.
Adjust the partition by comparing maxLeftA with minRightB.

Approach

Ensure A is the smaller array; binary search a cut i in A, with j = (m+n+1)//2 - i in B.
If A[i-1] > B[j], move the cut left; if B[j-1] > A[i], move right.
When valid, compute the median from the edge elements (handle even/odd total length).

Complexity

Metric	Value
Time	O(log(min(m,n)))
Space	O(1)

Unlock the full guide

Premium members get every DSA, system design, company and role interview guide — plus AI practice, mock interviews, and analytics.

Unlock with Premium