Maximize Area of Square Hole in Grid
A medium-tier problem at 37% community acceptance, tagged with Array, Sorting. Reported in interviews at Swiggy and 0 others.
You're given a grid with some cells already filled, and you need to find the largest square hole you can cut out. Swiggy has asked this, and the acceptance rate sits at 37%, which means most candidates either miss the sorting optimization or implement a brute-force search that times out. The trick isn't the square-finding logic itself; it's realizing that sorting the available cell dimensions lets you prune the search space dramatically. This is the kind of problem where the wrong approach feels right until you hit a wall on the live assessment. StealthCoder catches you there, invisible to the proctor, and surfaces the optimal path in seconds.
Companies that ask "Maximize Area of Square Hole in Grid"
Maximize Area of Square Hole in Grid 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 core insight: you can't just iterate through every possible square size and check every position. That's quadratic on grid dimensions and kills your runtime. Instead, you sort the dimensions you're working with (either the available widths and heights of contiguous free regions, or the constraints from filled cells), then use that ordering to eliminate candidates early. Many candidates struggle because they think it's a pure grid-search problem, when it's actually about preprocessing the data to make the search tractable. The Array and Sorting topics aren't decorative; sorting is the load-bearing wall. When you hit this live and your first approach TLEs, you're in a 20-minute scramble. StealthCoder hedges that exact scenario by showing you the sorted-candidate approach the moment you need it.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Maximize Area of Square Hole in Grid recycles across companies for a reason. It's medium-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.
Maximize Area of Square Hole in Grid interview FAQ
Why is the acceptance rate only 37% for a medium problem?+
Most candidates implement a brute-force grid search without recognizing that sorting and pruning are required. The problem looks like a simple 2D search but demands optimization insight. It's a medium that punishes incomplete preparation, which is why fewer solve it in the live setting.
Is this really an Array and Sorting problem, or is it geometry?+
Both. You're finding a square geometrically, but the efficient solution relies on sorting the candidate boundaries or dimensions to avoid redundant checks. Sorting is how you avoid timeout. Treating it as pure geometry leads to TLE.
What's the most common mistake candidates make?+
Iterating through all possible square sizes and all grid positions without preprocessing. That's O(n^4) or worse. The correct approach sorts dimensions first, then checks in pruned order. Most candidates realize this too late, on the clock.
How does Swiggy use this type of problem in their screening?+
Swiggy tests whether candidates can recognize when to optimize beyond the naive approach. The problem is deceptively simple to state but filters for engineers who think about complexity and data preprocessing before coding.
If I blank on the sorting trick during the live OA, what do I do?+
Code the brute-force version first to prove you understand the logic, then optimize. Or use StealthCoder invisibly during screen-share to see the sorted-candidate approach and adapt it in real time. Either path keeps you moving forward.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Maximize Area of Square Hole in Grid" on LeetCode →