Coding questions · Atlassian

Implement agent voting with average and sorting

This question evaluates the ability to design in-memory data structures and algorithms for recording and aggregating agent votes, including computing average ratings, sorting by aggregate score with tie-breaking, handling update semantics for repeated votes, and accounting for items with no votes.

Design an in-memory “agent voting” module that records ratings agents give to items (e.g., tickets/articles).

Requirements:

Each vote is: (agentId, itemId, rating) where rating is an integer (e.g., 1–5).
Support computing the average rating for a given itemId.
Support returning items sorted by average rating (descending). Specify how ties are broken (e.g., by itemId ascending).

Clarify behaviors:

If the same agent votes on the same item multiple times, should the latest vote replace the previous one?
What should be returned for items with no votes?

Provide the core data structures and methods, and analyze time/space complexity.

Agent Voting Averages

Record item ratings by agent, replacing repeat votes by the same agent, and return averages or sorted items.

Constraints

Ratings are integers

Examples

Example 1

Input: ((('vote', 'a', 'x', 5), ('vote', 'b', 'x', 3), ('avg', 'x')),)
Output: [4.0]

Explanation: Average from two agents.

Example 2

Input: ((('vote', 'a', 'x', 5), ('vote', 'a', 'x', 1), ('avg', 'x')),)
Output: [1.0]

Explanation: Latest vote replaces previous.

Hints

Maintain per-agent item votes plus per-item totals and voter counts.