Minimum Moves to Reach Target Score
A medium-tier problem at 51% community acceptance, tagged with Math, Greedy. Reported in interviews at Wayfair and 0 others.
You're staring at a problem that sounds like a brute-force simulation, but Wayfair's twist is the greedy insight hiding underneath. With 51% acceptance, half the candidates are missing the pattern and burning time on recursion or dynamic programming they don't need. The problem wants you to reach a target score with minimum moves, and the catch is that the greedy choice, always picking the move that gets you closest to the goal fastest, actually works. That's not luck. That's math. If you blank on the proof during your assessment, StealthCoder solves it in seconds while your proctor sees nothing.
Companies that ask "Minimum Moves to Reach Target Score"
Minimum Moves to Reach Target Score 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 trick is recognizing that this isn't a search problem; it's a Math and Greedy problem in the cleanest sense. Most candidates try to explore all paths or memoize states, which inflates complexity unnecessarily. The real solution is proving that a greedy step (picking the move that maximizes progress) is always safe. You'll need to work through why skipping a greedy move in favor of a 'roundabout' path can never be better. Common pitfall: not noticing that the problem structure allows you to jump straight to an answer instead of simulating. Another trap: confusing this with BFS or dynamic programming when a single loop with a greedy condition suffices. When you hit this live and the obvious simulation times out, StealthCoder's solution cuts through the noise and shows you the invariant that makes greedy work.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Minimum Moves to Reach Target Score 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.
Minimum Moves to Reach Target Score interview FAQ
Is this problem really just greedy, or do I need dynamic programming?+
It's genuinely greedy. The acceptance rate reflects candidates overthinking it. DP works but is overkill and slower. The problem structure guarantees that the locally optimal move (closest progress to target) is globally optimal. Prove this invariant and you're done in O(1) or O(log n) time, depending on the variant.
What's the most common mistake on this problem?+
Simulating every possible move sequence instead of recognizing the greedy pattern. Candidates also sometimes misread what 'minimum moves' counts (is it operations, steps, or something else?). Read the problem twice before coding. The greedy choice becomes obvious once you understand what you're actually minimizing.
How does this relate to classic greedy problems I should have drilled?+
It's similar to activity selection or interval scheduling in spirit, but with arithmetic instead of scheduling. If you've mastered the proof technique for 'greedy is optimal,' you already have the muscle memory. The difference is here you're proving a mathematical invariant, not a graph property.
Will Wayfair ask this again, and is it a signal problem?+
Wayfair has asked it. Whether it appears again depends on their pool refresh. At 51% acceptance, it's not rare enough to skip. It's more of a screening filter: solve it quickly and move on. Dwelling on it signals you're not seeing the pattern, which costs time on harder problems later.
What if I see this during my OA and I'm blanking on the greedy proof?+
That's exactly why StealthCoder exists. It reads your screen, spots the problem, and surfaces a working greedy solution before you waste 20 minutes on a simulation that times out. You submit, move forward, and keep your mental energy for problems where the trick isn't visible.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Minimum Moves to Reach Target Score" on LeetCode →