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Coding Interview Preparation Guide

Basic Level Questions

Arrays and Strings

1. Find the largest and smallest elements in an array.

○ Hint: Use a single loop with conditional checks.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: TCS, Infosys

2. Reverse a string.
○ Hint: Use two-pointer technique.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Wipro

3. Check if a string is a palindrome.

○ Hint: Compare the string with its reverse.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Accenture, Cognizant

4. Merge two sorted arrays.

○ Hint: Use two-pointer technique for linear merge.
○ Time Complexity: O(n + m)
○ Asked By: TCS, Capgemini

5. Count the frequency of characters in a string.

○ Hint: Use a hash map to store frequencies.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, HCL

6. Find the second largest element in an array.

○ Hint: Traverse the array twice or use two variables to track the largest and
second largest.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Capgemini, Cognizant
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7. Check if two strings are rotations of each other.
○ Hint: Concatenate one string with itself and check for the substring.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, TCS

8. Find the missing number in an array of size n containing numbers from 1 to n+1.
○ Hint: Use the sum formula or XOR approach.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Wipro, Accenture

9. Remove duplicates from a sorted array.

○ Hint: Use two-pointer technique.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Cognizant

10. Find the intersection of two arrays.

● Hint: Use hash maps or sorting with two-pointer technique.
● Time Complexity: O(n + m)
● Asked By: TCS, Capgemini

11. Find the maximum difference between two elements in an array such that larger
element appears after the smaller element.
● Hint: Track the minimum value while traversing.
● Time Complexity: O(n)
● Asked By: Cognizant, Infosys

12. Check if an array is sorted.

● Hint: Compare adjacent elements in a single loop.
● Time Complexity: O(n)
● Asked By: TCS, Wipro
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Intermediate Level Questions

Data Structures

1. Implement a stack using an array.

○ Hint: Use a top pointer to track the current stack position.
○ Time Complexity: Push and Pop O(1)
○ Asked By: TCS, Wipro

2. Reverse a linked list.

○ Hint: Use three pointers (previous, current, next).
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Cognizant

3. Check if a binary tree is a Binary Search Tree (BST).

○ Hint: Use an in-order traversal to check for sorted order.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Accenture, HCL

4. Find the middle element of a linked list in one pass.

○ Hint: Use a slow and fast pointer technique.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: TCS, Infosys

5. Implement a queue using stacks.

○ Hint: Use two stacks, one for enqueue and another for dequeue operations.
○ Time Complexity: O(1) amortized per operation.
○ Asked By: Capgemini, Infosys

6. Flatten a binary tree into a linked list.

○ Hint: Use post-order traversal to rearrange nodes.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Accenture, Cognizant

7. Find the depth of a binary tree.

○ Hint: Use a recursive function for depth-first search (DFS).
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: TCS, Wipro
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Arrays

1. Find the subarray with the maximum sum (Kadane’s Algorithm).

○ Hint: Track the current sum and the maximum sum.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Cognizant, Accenture

2. Rotate an array by k positions.

○ Hint: Reverse parts of the array.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Capgemini, Infosys

3. Find the first non-repeating element in an array.

○ Hint: Use a hash map to store counts and indices.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: TCS, HCL

4. Find the pair of elements with the given sum in a sorted array.
○ Hint: Use the two-pointer technique.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Wipro

5. Find the product of the array elements except for the current index.
○ Hint: Use prefix and suffix product arrays.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: TCS, Cognizant

Strings

1. Find all permutations of a string.

○ Hint: Use recursion with backtracking.
○ Time Complexity: O(n!)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Wipro

2. Check if two strings are anagrams.

○ Hint: Sort both strings or use a frequency array.
○ Time Complexity: O(n log n) or O(n)
○ Asked By: Cognizant, Capgemini
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3. Find the longest substring without repeating characters.
○ Hint: Use a sliding window technique with a hash set.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Accenture

4. Check if a string contains balanced parentheses.

○ Hint: Use a stack to validate the pairs.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: TCS, Capgemini

5. Find the longest palindromic substring.

○ Hint: Use dynamic programming or expand around center.
○ Time Complexity: O(n^2)
○ Asked By: TCS, Cognizant
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Advanced Level Questions

Dynamic Programming

1. Find the longest increasing subsequence in an array.

○ Hint: Use DP with a 1D array.
○ Time Complexity: O(n^2) or O(n log n)
○ Asked By: TCS, Accenture

2. Solve the word break problem.

○ Hint: Use a DP array to track valid words.
○ Time Complexity: O(n^2)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Cognizant

3. Find the minimum number of coins for change.

○ Hint: Use bottom-up DP to minimize the count.
○ Time Complexity: O(n * m)
○ Asked By: TCS, HCL

4. Solve the 0/1 Knapsack problem.

○ Hint: Use DP with a 2D table.
○ Time Complexity: O(n * W)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Capgemini

5. Find the number of ways to decode a string of digits.

○ Hint: Use DP to count possible interpretations.
○ Time Complexity: O(n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Cognizant

Graph Algorithms

1. Find the shortest path in a weighted graph (Dijkstra’s Algorithm).

○ Hint: Use a priority queue to track minimum distances.
○ Time Complexity: O((V + E) log V)
○ Asked By: TCS, Accenture
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2. Implement Kruskal’s Algorithm for Minimum Spanning Tree.
○ Hint: Use a union-find data structure.
○ Time Complexity: O(E log E)
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○ Asked By: Infosys, Cognizant
3. Detect a cycle in a graph (directed and undirected).
○ Hint: Use DFS for directed graphs and union-find for undirected graphs.
○ Time Complexity: O(V + E)
○ Asked By: TCS, Accenture

4. Find the strongly connected components in a graph (Kosaraju’s Algorithm).

○ Hint: Use two-pass DFS with graph reversal.
○ Time Complexity: O(V + E)
○ Asked By: Accenture, Capgemini

Advanced Data Structures

1. Implement a trie for dictionary operations.

○ Hint: Use a tree structure with nodes for each character.
○ Time Complexity: O(length of word)
○ Asked By: TCS, Capgemini

2. Design and implement an LRU cache.

○ Hint: Use a combination of a hash map and a doubly linked list.
○ Time Complexity: O(1) for get and put operations.
○ Asked By: Accenture, Cognizant

3. Implement a min-heap and its operations.

○ Hint: Use an array representation for the heap.
○ Time Complexity: O(log n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Wipro

4. Implement a segment tree for range queries.

○ Hint: Build the tree recursively and use lazy propagation for updates.
○ Time Complexity: O(n log n)
○ Asked By: TCS, HCL

5. Design a data structure to find median in a stream of numbers.

○ Hint: Use a combination of max-heap and min-heap.
○ Time Complexity: O(log n) for insert and O(1) for median.
○ Asked By: Cognizant, Infosys
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Bonus Problems

1. Solve the N-Queens problem.

○ Hint: Use backtracking to place queens.
○ Time Complexity: O(n!)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Cognizant

2. Implement the Rabin-Karp algorithm for string matching.

○ Hint: Use hashing to compare substring matches.
○ Time Complexity: O(n + m) average.
○ Asked By: TCS, HCL

3. Solve the Travelling Salesman Problem using dynamic programming.

○ Hint: Use bitmasking for state representation.
○ Time Complexity: O(n^2 * 2^n)
○ Asked By: Infosys, Capgemini

4. Design a snake and ladder game using OOP principles.

○ Hint: Use classes for board, players, and dice.
○ Asked By: Accenture, Cognizant

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