Categorize Box According to Criteria
A easy-tier problem at 38% community acceptance, tagged with Math. Reported in interviews at Zendesk and 0 others.
Zendesk asks this problem, and it looks deceptively simple until you realize you've miscounted dimensions or missed an edge case. You're given a box with length, width, height, and a set of criteria. Your job: determine which category it falls into based on mathematical comparisons. The acceptance rate sits at 37.7%, which tells you plenty of candidates are failing on the details. This is the kind of problem where you nail the logic in prep but blank on the boundary conditions when the proctor's watching. If this hits your assessment and you freeze, StealthCoder runs invisibly in the background and surfaces a working solution in seconds.
Companies that ask "Categorize Box According to Criteria"
Categorize Box According to Criteria is the kind of problem that decides whether you pass. StealthCoder reads the problem on screen and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Invisible to screen share. The proctor sees nothing. Built by an engineer who got tired of watching his cohort grind for six months and still get filtered at the OA stage.
Get StealthCoderThe trap here is treating this as pure categorization when it's really about careful integer comparison and conditional logic. Most people write the if-else chain and ship it, then miss that certain dimension orderings or equality cases behave differently. You'll see candidates assume all three dimensions matter equally, or they'll forget to validate that a 'cube' requires all sides equal, not just two. The Math tag suggests you're doing straightforward arithmetic, but the real difficulty comes from correctly mapping multiple dimension comparisons to discrete categories. If you've drilled this pattern in practice, you'll recognize the structure instantly. If not, and you're in the live OA, StealthCoder eliminates the guesswork by showing you exactly which conditions map to which outputs.
Pattern tags
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Categorize Box According to Criteria recycles across companies for a reason. It's easy-tier, and most candidates blank under the timer. StealthCoder is the hedge: an AI overlay invisible during screen share. It reads the problem and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Built by an engineer who got tired of watching his cohort grind for six months and still get filtered at the OA stage. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Categorize Box According to Criteria interview FAQ
Why is the acceptance rate so low for an 'easy' problem?+
Categorization problems penalize edge cases and boundary conditions heavily. Candidates often miss equality checks, assume sorted order, or misread the criteria. It's marked easy because the arithmetic is simple, but the logic correctness is strict.
How should I structure the solution?+
Read the exact criteria first. Extract and sort dimensions if needed, then check each category condition in order. Prioritize specificity: check the most restrictive criteria first. Use early returns to avoid cascading bugs.
What's the most common mistake on this problem?+
Forgetting that equality matters. Confusing 'one dimension greater than the other two' with 'two dimensions equal and one different.' Test your conditions against edge cases where two or all three dimensions are identical.
Is Zendesk still actively asking this?+
The data confirms Zendesk has asked it. Lower company count suggests it's niche to them or similar-sized orgs. If you're interviewing there, understanding the category logic cold is worth the time investment.
Do I need to optimize further after getting the correct answer?+
No. This is a Math problem with straightforward conditionals. Once your logic correctly identifies the category, you're done. No sorting complexity, no memory tricks. Clean code and correct output matter far more than micro-optimization.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Categorize Box According to Criteria" on LeetCode →