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Maximum Subarray (Kadane's Algorithm) at Uber — Interview Guide

How to approach Maximum Subarray (Kadane's Algorithm) in a Uber interview: the optimal approach, what Uber interviewers look for, and company-specific tips.

Updated 2026-09MediumDynamic Programming

The problem at Uber

Given an integer array, find the contiguous subarray with the largest sum and return that sum.

Uber uses this problem to assess real-time systems and marketplaces. Expect Uber-specific follow-ups that tie the solution back to production reasoning and the company's engineering bar.

Key concepts

Kadane: at each index, the best subarray ending here is either the element alone or the element plus the best ending at the previous index.
Track the running sum, reset to 0 when it goes negative, and keep the global maximum.
Divide-and-conquer gives O(n log n) and generalizes to 2D problems.

Approach

def max_subarray(nums):
    best = cur = nums[0]
    for x in nums[1:]:
        cur = max(x, cur + x)
        best = max(best, cur)
    return best

What Uber looks for

Real-time and distributed systems intuition.
Geospatial and concurrency reasoning.
Pragmatic, production-minded engineering.
Ownership of features end-to-end.

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