Minimum Operations to Make Numbers Non-positive
A hard-tier problem at 42% community acceptance, tagged with Array, Binary Search. Reported in interviews at Citadel and 1 others.
Citadel and Snowflake have both asked this one, and it shows up on hard-tier OAs. The trap is thinking greedily when you need binary search. You're given an array and a set of operations; the goal is to make everything non-positive with minimum ops. The obvious approach of always reducing the largest number fails because the cost structure isn't linear. You need to binary search on the answer space, then validate whether a candidate count suffices. If this problem hits your live assessment and you blank on the binary-search angle, StealthCoder surfaces the working solution in seconds, invisible to the proctor.
Companies that ask "Minimum Operations to Make Numbers Non-positive"
Minimum Operations to Make Numbers Non-positive 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. Built by an Amazon engineer who realized the OA tests how well you memorized 200 problems, not how well you code.
Get StealthCoderThe core trick is recognizing this as a decision problem disguised as an optimization problem. You can't greedily pick operations; instead, binary search on the minimum number of operations needed, then check feasibility. For a given operation budget, you need to simulate or greedily validate whether you can drive all numbers to non-positive within that budget. The catch: the cost of each operation depends on the current state of the array, so your feasibility check has to be tight. Array manipulation under constraints and Binary Search are the labeled topics, and both matter equally. Many candidates waste time simulating the greedy path forward instead of binary searching the answer space backward. StealthCoder cuts through that by identifying the binary-search structure and validating the feasibility logic.
Pattern tags
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Make sure you actually pass it.
Minimum Operations to Make Numbers Non-positive 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. Built by an Amazon engineer who realized the OA tests how well you memorized 200 problems, not how well you code. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Minimum Operations to Make Numbers Non-positive interview FAQ
Is this really a hard problem, or does it just look hard?+
It reads as hard because the greedy intuition is wrong. The actual implementation of binary search plus feasibility check is moderate, but spotting the binary-search structure when the problem describes a direct optimization is where most candidates get stuck. Acceptance rate around 42% reflects that.
Why doesn't greedy work here?+
Greedy usually means always operating on the largest (or cheapest) element. But here, operations have side effects or costs that change based on what you've already done. A global minimum ops count requires exploring the decision space, not a locally optimal sequence.
What's the role of binary search exactly?+
Binary search on the answer: the minimum ops. For each midpoint, check whether that ops count is sufficient to make all numbers non-positive. If yes, try fewer ops; if no, try more. This turns an optimization problem into a decision problem you can verify quickly.
Do I need to handle negative numbers or zeros specially?+
Yes. The goal is non-positive, so zero and negatives are already safe. Your feasibility check must skip or mark those as complete. The real work is reducing positive values to zero or below within your ops budget.
Is this asked at other companies besides Citadel and Snowflake?+
Only those two are in the data. Both are serious on algorithmic rigor, so the binary-search pattern is valued there. If you hit this at another company, treat it the same way: binary search the answer, validate with a tight simulation or greedy scan.
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