Maximum Sum Contiguous Subarray

1. Problem Statement

2. Live Coding Format

3. Key Focus Areas

• 1
  Problem clarification and contract
• 2
  Approach exploration and optimality
• 3
  Implementation correctness
• 4
  Tests and dry run
• 5
  Complexity analysis
• 6
  Follow-up performance

4. What Strong Candidates Should Demonstrate

• Clarify the contract: must the subarray be non-empty, and how are all-negative inputs handled?
• Explain an approach and why it is correct before coding, and improve on a brute-force baseline.
• Implement it correctly, including single-element and all-negative inputs.
• Validate with explicit expected outputs and a step-by-step dry run.
• Analyze time and space complexity and handle a focused follow-up extension.