Split Message Based on Limit
A hard-tier problem at 43% community acceptance, tagged with String, Binary Search, Enumeration. Reported in interviews at ZipRecruiter and 5 others.
Split Message Based on Limit looks simple until you hit the live assessment and realize it's asking you to partition a string under a weight constraint without actually knowing the cost function upfront. You're bouncing between greedy heuristics and binary search, trying to figure out which words fit into each message chunk. Companies like TikTok, Capital One, and Roblox ask this one often enough that you can't rely on intuition. The acceptance rate sits around 43 percent, which means most candidates either misread the constraint or default to a suboptimal scan-and-split loop. If you blank on the enumeration pattern during your OA, StealthCoder surfaces a working solution in seconds, invisible to the proctor.
Companies that ask "Split Message Based on Limit"
Split Message Based on Limit 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 a working FAANG engineer who treats the OA the way companies treat hiring: as a game with rules you should know.
Get StealthCoderThe trap is assuming a simple greedy left-to-right packing will work. In reality, you're often dealing with a cost function that scales nonlinearly, and you need to know when to stop adding words to the current message and when to start a new one. Binary search becomes critical because you're searching for the maximum word count that fits within a message-size limit, then enumeration helps you systematically try different splits. The obvious approach fails because it doesn't account for edge cases like single words that exceed the limit or the exact boundary where adding one more character breaks the constraint. String manipulation alone won't cut it; you need to combine all three topics to avoid timeout and handle all the corner cases the test harness throws at you.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Split Message Based on Limit recycles across companies for a reason. It's hard-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 a working FAANG engineer who treats the OA the way companies treat hiring: as a game with rules you should know. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Split Message Based on Limit interview FAQ
Is this really a hard problem or does it just feel hard?+
It's hard because the cost model isn't trivial and greedy fails silently. You can write code that looks correct but times out or gives wrong answers on large inputs. The 43 percent acceptance rate reflects that most candidates either miss the binary search optimization or don't enumerate splits correctly.
Do I actually need binary search for this?+
Yes. Greedy linear packing is too slow and brittle. Binary search lets you find the optimal cutoff point for each message chunk in log time. Without it, you're re-scanning and recomputing costs repeatedly, which tanks performance on the real test cases.
What's the trick most people miss?+
They treat it as a pure string-splitting problem and ignore the weight constraint entirely, or they forget that the cost function can be nonlinear. Enumeration means you have to try multiple valid splits and pick the best one, not just find the first one that fits.
Is this still asked at TikTok and Capital One?+
Yes. Both companies appear in the reported asks for this problem. It shows up frequently enough in their interview loops that you can't skip it. If it lands in your OA, you need a solid plan, not a guess.
How much time should I spend drilling this one?+
Enough to understand the binary search plus enumeration combo. This isn't a one-pass problem. Work through it once, map out the cost model, then code it clean. Save your energy for the real OA; that's where StealthCoder earns its place as your safety net.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Split Message Based on Limit" on LeetCode →