Find Capable Winners
Reported by candidates from Amazon's online assessment. Pattern, common pitfall, and the honest play if you blank under the timer.
Amazon asked this in September 2024 and you've got it in your inbox right now. The problem title 'Find Capable Winners' is deliberately vague, which means the trick isn't algorithmic complexity, it's parsing what 'capable' and 'winners' actually mean in the contest/competition context they're describing. Without the full problem text, you're hunting for a filtering or ranking pattern. StealthCoder reads the exact problem statement during your OA and surfaces the core logic instantly, so you don't waste time on the false patterns everyone assumes.
Pattern and pitfall
This problem almost certainly involves scanning through a list of contestants or results, applying qualification criteria ('capable'), and selecting or ranking a subset ('winners'). The pattern usually maps to either a filtering operation, a sorting pass with custom comparators, or a hash-table lookup for eligibility. The gotcha is almost always in the definition of 'capable': it might be a threshold score, a specific skill set, past performance, or a combination rule that candidates misread on first pass. When you're live and the problem description hits your screen, lock in the eligibility rules first, then decide if you need a heap, a two-pointer scan, or just a single pass with a hash map. StealthCoder will flag that decision tree instantly.
Drill it cold or hedge it with StealthCoder. Either way, don't walk into the OA hoping you remember the trick.
You can drill Find Capable Winners cold, or you can hedge it. StealthCoder runs invisibly during screen share and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. The proctor sees the IDE. They don't see what's behind it. Made for the candidate who got the OA invite this morning and has 72 hours, not six months.
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Find Capable Winners FAQ
Is this a sorting or a filtering problem?+
Both, usually. You'll filter the 'capable' contestants first, then rank or return them in some order. Read the output format carefully, if they ask for 'top winners', it's a sort. If they ask for 'all winners', it's a filter. The problem title won't tell you which.
What's the most common pitfall Amazon sets here?+
Misinterpreting the definition of 'capable'. It's never just 'score > X'. It's usually a compound rule: past wins AND current performance, or skill level AND availability, or rank AND some secondary metric. Read the problem statement twice before coding.
Do I need a heap for this?+
Only if you're finding the top-K winners and K is much smaller than the contestant list. If you're just filtering and returning in original order, a single pass with a hash set for eligible skills is faster and simpler.
How do I prepare in 24 hours?+
You don't drill this. Reread any Amazon OA problems you've done before and note how they define qualifiers. Look for patterns in compound filtering rules. During the OA, spend 2 minutes reading the problem three times before touching the code.
Is this still asked at Amazon?+
Yes. Amazon rotates OA problems but this style of filtering/ranking problem shows up every season. The exact criteria change; the pattern doesn't. Expect something like this or very similar.