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 Desai11 months ago

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.