Sum of Two Integers
A medium-tier problem at 54% community acceptance, tagged with Math, Bit Manipulation. Reported in interviews at Hulu and 1 others.
Sum of Two Integers is a medium-difficulty problem that hits you with a constraint: solve addition without using the + or - operators. It shows up in assessments at Hulu and Bloomberg, and the acceptance rate sits around 54%, meaning half the candidates who attempt it don't land a clean solution. The trick isn't math, it's bit manipulation. If you haven't wired bit-level addition into your brain yet, this problem will expose that gap fast. StealthCoder is the safety net if you freeze on the bit-shift pattern during your live OA.
Companies that ask "Sum of Two Integers"
Sum of Two Integers 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 idea: addition at the bit level is just XOR (for sum without carry) plus AND-and-shift (for the carry). Most candidates either try to work around the operator ban by using subtraction or recursion, or they know the pattern but stumble implementing it across languages. The gotcha is handling negative numbers and language-specific integer overflow. You need XOR to combine bits, AND to find where carries happen, then shift the carry left and repeat until there's no carry left. Common fail: forgetting that the carry propagates; you can't just XOR once and call it done. The problem is abstract enough that drilling it once usually clicks it in forever. If you hit this live and the bit pattern doesn't click, StealthCoder surfaces the working solution in seconds, no lag.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Sum of Two Integers 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.
Sum of Two Integers interview FAQ
Is this problem actually asked at major companies?+
Yes. It's confirmed at Hulu and Bloomberg. It's a medium-difficulty tag, so expect it in phone screens or online assessments, not final rounds. The 54% acceptance rate tells you it's a real filter, not a gimme.
Do I have to memorize the bit-shift trick?+
Not memorize, but understand. The pattern (XOR + AND-shift loop) is the only clean way to solve it without operators. Once you see it work once, it sticks. It's not a magic formula; it's how hardware actually does addition.
What's the hardest part of this problem?+
Handling negative numbers and overflow. Different languages handle two's complement differently. Python's arbitrary precision integers trip up solutions that assume fixed bit widths. You need to know your language's integer model or mask bits explicitly.
How does this relate to the other Math and Bit Manipulation topics?+
Bit Manipulation is the real topic here. The Math tag is basically a red herring. This problem teaches you bitwise operations (XOR, AND, left shift) that unlock harder bit problems. It's foundational.
Can I solve this without bit manipulation?+
Not cleanly, and definitely not in an interview. The constraint bans + and -, so you'd have to fake addition with recursion or tricks, which feels hacky and slow. The bit approach is the expected solution.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Sum of Two Integers" on LeetCode →