Climbing Stairs
A easy-tier problem at 54% community acceptance, tagged with Math, Dynamic Programming, Memoization. Reported in interviews at Zoho and 35 others.
Climbing Stairs is the easiest problem in the dynamic programming canon, yet it shows up in OAs from Apple, Amazon, Adobe, and a dozen other major tech companies. You've probably seen it in tutorials. The acceptance rate sits at 53 percent because candidates either nail it immediately or freeze when asked to optimize it on the spot. If you hit this problem live and blank on the pattern, StealthCoder surfaces a working solution invisibly during your screen share, so you move on without losing time to a problem you should have drilled.
Companies that ask "Climbing Stairs"
Climbing Stairs 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. Made by an Amazon engineer who watched the leaked-problem repo become an industry secret. He decided you should have it too.
Get StealthCoderThe trap is thinking recursion first. Yes, you can write a recursive solution that counts paths: you're at step n, so you either came from step n-1 or n-2. But recursion recalculates the same subproblems exponentially. The pattern is Fibonacci: each step is the sum of the two previous steps. Memoization or bottom-up dynamic programming flatten it to linear time. Most candidates know this intellectually but stumble under pressure when forced to code it cold. The real win is recognizing that you don't need a DP table; a two-variable rolling solution works. StealthCoder is your hedge if the live assessment catches you frozen between the naive and optimized approach.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Climbing Stairs 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. Made by an Amazon engineer who watched the leaked-problem repo become an industry secret. He decided you should have it too. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Climbing Stairs interview FAQ
Is Climbing Stairs still asked at FAANG level?+
Yes. It appears in OAs from Apple, Amazon, and Adobe, among the 36 companies that report asking it. It's often a warm-up or screening problem, not a final-round blocker. But missing it costs time and confidence.
What's the trick to solving this fast?+
Recognize the Fibonacci pattern immediately. You reach step n from step n-1 or n-2, so ways(n) = ways(n-1) + ways(n-2). Start with base cases (n=1, n=2) and iterate. No recursion, no heavy DP table needed.
Why do so many people get it wrong?+
They either write slow recursive code and don't optimize, or overthink it by building a full DP array when two variables suffice. Under time pressure, candidates confuse this with other path-counting problems and waste minutes on setup.
How does this relate to other DP topics?+
Climbing Stairs is the textbook intro to Memoization and dynamic programming fundamentals. It teaches subproblem overlap and bottom-up building. If you can't recognize the pattern here, harder DP problems will demolish you.
Should I memorize a solution or learn the concept?+
Learn the concept. The Fibonacci pattern is obvious once you draw the decision tree. But under live OA stress, muscle memory helps. Drill it three times so your hands code it while you're reading the next problem.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Climbing Stairs" on LeetCode →