The first step was a task explained by the interviewer over the phone. It was to be completed at home within about 20 minutes and sent by email for review. The task involved removing duplicate consecutive spaces from a string, in-place.

The second step was an on-site coding task scheduled to take up to 4 hours, though the interviewer described it as doable in about two hours. I don't remember the specifics of the on-site task, but it had to do with building a very simple file system, where the interface was provided.

Remove duplicate consecutive spaces from a given string, in-place.

For example: "Have a nice day" should become "Have a nice day".

Removal of leading and trailing spaces was not specifically mentioned.