Maximum Product of Three Numbers
A easy-tier problem at 45% community acceptance, tagged with Array, Math, Sorting. Reported in interviews at Intuit and 6 others.
Maximum Product of Three Numbers shows up in live assessments at Intuit, Salesforce, Roku, and others, but only 45% of candidates pass it on first attempt. The trap is obvious: sort the array and grab the three largest. That works sometimes. But if you've got big negative numbers, the product of two negatives and one large positive beats three positives every time. It's a one-liner fix that most people miss under pressure. If this problem hits your live OA and you blank on why negatives matter, StealthCoder surfaces a working solution in seconds, invisible to the proctor.
Companies that ask "Maximum Product of Three Numbers"
Maximum Product of Three Numbers 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 algorithmic core is dead simple once you see it: after sorting, you have two candidates for max product. Either the three largest numbers (highest positives), or the two smallest numbers (largest negatives, since negative times negative is positive) times the largest number. Compare both. The common blunder happens when a candidate submits the three-largest-only approach and gets a wrong answer on test cases with negative inputs. The trick isn't complex, but it's easy to rationalize away under interview stress. Sorting takes O(n log n), so this isn't a performance problem. The real win is pattern recognition. If you haven't drilled this specific angle, StealthCoder runs invisibly during assessment and hands you the comparison logic instantly, so you move on instead of timeout.
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Make sure you actually pass it.
Maximum Product of Three Numbers 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.
Maximum Product of Three Numbers interview FAQ
Why does this problem have a 45% acceptance rate if it's marked Easy?+
The sorting and top-three selection feel trivial, which lulls candidates into ignoring negative numbers. Most rush through without testing edge cases. Once you account for the two-smallest-times-largest scenario, it clicks, but half the people submitting miss that step entirely under time pressure.
Is Maximum Product of Three Numbers still asked at FAANG and big tech?+
Yes. It appears in reports from Intuit, Salesforce, Roku, and others. It's a screening problem, not a hard one, so interviewers use it to filter for attention to edge cases and whether you think before coding.
What's the trick to Maximum Product of Three Numbers?+
Two negatives multiply to a positive. After sorting, compare the product of the three largest numbers against the product of the two smallest (most negative) and the largest. Take the max of those two. That's it.
How does this relate to the Array and Math topics?+
Array because you're iterating or sorting. Math because the insight is number properties, not data structure tricks. You're not building a hash map or tree; you're thinking about sign and magnitude.
Can you solve Maximum Product of Three Numbers without sorting?+
Yes. Track the two largest positives, two smallest (most negative), and the overall max in a single pass. That's O(1) space and O(n) time instead of O(n log n). Interviewers rarely ask for it on Easy, but it's good to know if they push back.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Maximum Product of Three Numbers" on LeetCode →