Super Egg Drop
A hard-tier problem at 29% community acceptance, tagged with Math, Binary Search, Dynamic Programming. Reported in interviews at Goldman Sachs and 0 others.
Super Egg Drop is the kind of hard problem that stops candidates cold. You've got K eggs and N floors, and you need to find the critical floor with minimum worst-case drops. It looks like a straightforward binary search or greedy problem until you realize the math doesn't work that way. Goldman Sachs has asked this. The acceptance rate sits around 29 percent, which means most people either miss the pattern or code a solution that's technically correct but fails on large inputs. If this problem hits your live assessment and you blank on the dynamic programming reformulation, StealthCoder solves it in seconds while you stay invisible to the proctor.
Companies that ask "Super Egg Drop"
Super Egg Drop 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 used it to pass JPMorgan's OA and system design loop.
Get StealthCoderThe trick isn't the egg drop itself. It's flipping the problem on its head. Instead of asking 'what's the minimum drops needed for K eggs and N floors,' ask 'how many floors can I check with K eggs and T tries.' That pivot unlocks a clean DP recurrence and binary search optimization. Most candidates get trapped optimizing the wrong formulation, then run into time-limit exceeded on large test cases. The obvious greedy approaches (halving floors each time) fail when eggs are limited. Binary Search and Dynamic Programming both matter here, but not in the way beginners expect. The Math topic appears because the pattern boils down to combinatorial growth rates. When you hit this live, knowing the reformulation is everything. Without it, you're grinding through brute force. With it, you've got a working solution in minutes.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Super Egg Drop 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 used it to pass JPMorgan's OA and system design loop. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Super Egg Drop interview FAQ
Is Super Egg Drop still asked by real companies?+
Yes. Goldman Sachs is confirmed to have asked it. Hard DP problems like this one stay in rotation because they separate candidates who know the pattern from those grinding through brute force. It's a filter.
What's the actual trick to solving this fast?+
Flip the question. Stop asking 'how many tries for N floors and K eggs' and start asking 'how many floors can I cover with K eggs and T tries.' That transforms it into a manageable DP recurrence that binary search can optimize.
Can you brute-force this or does it require the clever approach?+
Brute force DP works on small inputs but hits time limits on larger ones. The reformulation with binary search is necessary for efficiency. If you code the naive approach live, you'll likely fail test cases silently or timeout.
How does Binary Search fit into the solution?+
After you reformulate, binary search optimizes the DP table construction. Instead of checking every possible number of tries, binary search finds the minimum tries needed for a given floor count, cutting the time complexity significantly.
Why is the acceptance rate so low at 29 percent?+
Most candidates miss the reformulation and get stuck in the wrong DP framing. They code something that works conceptually but times out or they give up trying. Knowing the reframe is the difference between passing and failing.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Super Egg Drop" on LeetCode →