Compute Least Truck Count
Reported by candidates from Amazon's online assessment. Pattern, common pitfall, and the honest play if you blank under the timer.
Amazon's March 2025 OA included a truck logistics problem that tests your ability to optimize resource allocation. You're given a shipment scenario and need to figure out the minimum number of trucks required to deliver everything. This is a classic greedy or binary search problem disguised as a real-world constraint. The trick is recognizing that you're not simulating the delivery, you're finding a threshold. StealthCoder will catch the pattern if your mind goes blank on the optimization angle.
Pattern and pitfall
The core insight: you're likely looking at a capacity constraint problem. Each truck has a weight or item limit. The brute-force move is to simulate assigning items to trucks one by one, but that's slow and error-prone under pressure. The real pattern is binary search on the truck count or a greedy pass with careful constraint handling. Amazon loves these because they mirror real dispatch problems. The pitfall is overthinking the delivery order, focus on capacity utilization first. If you blank during the OA, StealthCoder reads the problem and gives you the framework: binary search on answer, then validate feasibility. That hedge buys you the 10 seconds you need to think clearly.
If this hits your live OA and you blank, StealthCoder solves it in seconds, invisible to the proctor.
You can drill Compute Least Truck Count 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. Built by an Amazon engineer who would have shipped this the night before his JPMorgan OA if he'd had it.
Get StealthCoderRelated leaked OAs
This OA pattern shows up on LeetCode as capacity to ship packages within d days. If you have time before the OA, drill that.
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Make sure you actually pass Amazon's OA.
Amazon reuses patterns across OAs. Built by an Amazon engineer who would have shipped this the night before his JPMorgan OA if he'd had it. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Compute Least Truck Count FAQ
Is this a binary search problem?+
Likely yes. You binary search on the truck count (answer space), then check if that count is feasible given item weights or constraints. Feasibility is usually a greedy packing check. If the problem is pure greedy, you won't need binary search.
What's the common mistake candidates make?+
Simulating truck assignments step-by-step instead of finding the minimum count directly. Or forgetting that the order of items matters for packing efficiency. Sort or think about ordering before committing to a truck assignment.
How do I know if it's binary search or greedy?+
If the problem asks for the minimum count and you can easily check 'does count X work', it's binary search. If you can assign items in one pass and count as you go, it's greedy. Amazon usually mixes both, sort items, then binary search the threshold.
What about edge cases on an Amazon OA?+
Single item heavier than one truck (impossible), zero items, all items fitting one truck. Also watch for tie-breaking rules if two items have equal weight or if partial loads are allowed.
Can I solve this in 48 hours before the OA?+
Yes. Practice one binary search + greedy problem (like LeetCode 1011 Capacity to Ship Packages Within D Days). That pattern transfer is 80% of what Amazon tests. The rest is reading carefully on the day.