Skip to main content
Interview

Stack and Queue problems - underrated topic for interviews

Sonal KaurSonal Kaur
8/7/2025
00

I used to skip stack/queue problems thinking they're too easy. Big mistake. Here are non-trivial ones I've seen in actual interviews:

  • Next greater element (monotonic stack)
  • Largest rectangle in histogram
  • Trapping rain water
  • Min stack
  • Evaluate reverse polish notation
  • Daily temperatures
  • Valid parentheses (and its harder variants)
  • Sliding window maximum (deque)

The monotonic stack pattern alone has come up in 3 of my interviews this year. Don't sleep on stacks!


stackqueuepatternsinterview-prep

Comments (3)

Sign in to join the discussion.
Lakshay Desai
Lakshay Desai9/3/2025

I've been struggling with the sliding window maximum. The deque approach makes sense, but implementing it efficiently is tough! Any tips?

Ivan Jones
Ivan Jones8/24/2025

Valid parentheses is a classic, but what are the harder variants you mentioned? Curious if I've tackled them.

Lakshay Desai
Lakshay Desai8/22/2025

I totally agree! The trapping rain water problem tripped me up the first time because of its tricky use of stacks. Took me a while to see the pattern.