So I'm managing to get the fabled '1074' with the medium pyramid and passing both tests in the editor, however I'm struggling with figuring out an early return to the code if a possible solution has been found.

Just to check my understanding, is it better to start at the bottom of the pyramid and work up, instead of going from the top and working down?

No, and it's been asked and answered many times below, please check.

This is how you reach 1074:
75+64+82+87+82+75+73+28+83+32+91+78+58+73+93 = 1074

The result should be 1064 not 1074, please check

Good kata for dynamic programming! It's may be fun, but I write initial idea in 5 minutes and check whole 2 hours why this isn't works. By the end it being logical error in choosing next index. So be carefully, index in array works not the same as left and right pointer in the tree!

in the medium pyramid this the path : 75+64+82+87+82+75+73+28+83+32+91+78+58+73+93 = 1074
for example in 32 value is there 9 possible paths or 4 paths ?

Very great kata on dynamic programming and algorithms optimization, well done, congratulations.

interesting kata! I liked it. solution was simple, but takes about 5-6 hours. but I think example in description is not good, you need to analyze result from middle pyramid

why not?
please give us a little more explanation to our general mistake

No.

need to fix (as you already know) problem with the result:
second test result (checked by hand) - 1064, not 1074!
Maybe it's a mistake or another thing, idk...

You could have just read the posts below yours and their answers instead of creating another false issue.

You're choosing the wrong path.

Read this:
https://www.codewars.com/kata/551f23362ff852e2ab000037/discuss#5918235980a6997f7b000005

Not a kata issue.

https://www.codewars.com/kata/551f23362ff852e2ab000037/discuss#633b43e52069d5b029de0cf8

                          [75],
                        [95, 64],
                      [17, 47, 82],
                    [18, 35, 87, 10],
                  [20,  4, 82, 47, 65],
                [19,  1, 23, 75,  3, 34],
              [88,  2, 77, 73,  7, 63, 67],
            [99, 65,  4, 28,  6, 16, 70, 92],
          [41, 41, 26, 56, 83, 40, 80, 70, 33],
        [41, 48, 72, 33, 47, 32, 37, 16, 94, 29],
      [53, 71, 44, 65, 25, 43, 91, 52, 97, 51, 14],
    [70, 11, 33, 28, 77, 73, 17, 78, 39, 68, 17, 57],
  [91, 71, 52, 38, 17, 14, 91, 43, 58, 50, 27, 29, 48],
[63, 66,  4, 68, 89, 53, 67, 30, 73, 16, 69, 87, 40, 31],

[ 4, 62, 98, 27, 23, 9, 70, 98, 73, 93, 38, 53, 60, 4, 23]

75 + 95 + 47 + 87 + 82 + 75 + 73 + 28 + 83 + 47 + 43 + 73 + 91 + 67 + 98 = 1064

Почему не так? Написанно же, что наибольшее должно быть??