10 Most Important Algorithms For Coding Interviews

Last Updated : 09 May, 2023

Algorithms are the set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations. It
is considered one of the most important subjects considered from the programming aspect. Also,
one of the most complex yet interesting subjects. From the interview aspect, if you want to crack a
coding interview, you must have a strong command over Algorithms and Data Structures. In this
article, we’ll read about some of the most important algorithms that will help you crack coding
interviews.

There are many important Algorithms of which a few of them are mentioned below:

1. Sorting Algorithms

2. Searching Algorithms

3. String Algorithms

4. Divide and Conquer

5. Recursion & Backtracking

6. Greedy Algorithms

7. Dynamic Programming

8. Tree-Related Algo

9. Graph Algorithms

10. Sliding Window

Sorting algorithms are used to arrange the data in a specific order and use the same data to get the
required information. Here are some of the sorting algorithms that are best with respect to the time
taken to sort the data.

Sorting Algorithms

Below are the most important sorting algorithm as interview perspective:

1. Bubble Sort

2. Insertion Sort

3. Selection Sort

4. Quick Sort

5. Heap sort

2. Searching Algorithms

Searching Algorithms are designed to check for an element or retrieve an element from any data
structure where it is stored.
Searching Algorithms

1. Linear Search

2. Binary Search

3. Pattern Searching Algorithms

The Pattern Searching algorithms are sometimes also referred to as String Searching Algorithms and
are considered as a part of the String algorithms. These algorithms are useful in the case of searching
a string within another string.

Pattern Searching Algorithms

1. Rabin Karp Algorithm

2. KMP Algorithm

3. Z Algorithm
4. Divide and Conquer

As the name itself suggests It’s first divided into smaller sub-problems then these subproblems are
solved and later on these problems are combined to get the final solution. There are so many
important algorithms that work on the Divide and Conquer strategy.

Divide and Conquer

Some examples of Divide and Conquer algorithms are as follows:

• Quick Sort

• Merge Sort

• Matrix Multiplication

5. Backtracking
Backtracking is a variation of recursion. In backtracking, we solve the sub-problem with some
changes one at a time and remove that change after calculating the solution of the problem to this
sub-problem. It takes every possible combination of problems in order to solve them.

There are some standard questions on backtracking as mentioned below:

• N-Queens

• Rat in a maze

• Sudoku

• M coloring problem

6. Greedy Algorithm

A greedy algorithm is a method of solving problems with the most optimal option available. It’s used
in such situations where optimization is required i.e. where the maximization or the minimization is
required.

Some of the most common problems with greedy algorithms are as follows –

• Job Sequencing Problem

• Prim’s algorithms for MST

• Fractional Knapsack problem

7. Dynamic Programming

Dynamic programming is one of the most important algorithms that is asked in coding interviews.
Dynamic programming works on recursion. It’s an optimization of recursion. Dynamic Programming
can be applied to all such problems, where we have to solve a problem using its sub-problems. And
the final solution is derived from the solutions of smaller sub-problems. It basically stores solutions of
sub-problems and simply uses the stored result wherever required, in spite of calculating the same
thing again and again.

Some of the very important questions based on Dynamic Programming are as follows:

• 0/1 Knapsack Problem

• Longest Palindromic subsequence

• Longest common subsequence

8. Tree Traversals Algorithms

Tree traversal refers to the process of visiting all nodes in a tree data structure, typically in a specific
order. In other words, it’s the method of accessing and processing each node in a tree in a systematic
way.

here are different ways to traverse a tree, but the most common ones are:

1. In-Order Traversal: In this traversal, the nodes are visited in the order of left subtree, root
node, and right subtree. This type of traversal is commonly used in binary search trees.

2. Pre-Order Traversal: In this traversal, the nodes are visited in the order of root node, left
subtree, and right subtree.
 3. Post-Order Traversal: In this traversal, the nodes are visited in the order of left subtree, right
subtree, and root node.

4. Level-Order Traversal: It involves visiting each level of the tree from left to right. In this
traversal, we start from the root node, visit all the nodes on the first level, then move to the
second level and visit all the nodes on that level, and so on until we reach the last level.

9. Graphs Algorithms

1. Breadth First Search (BFS): A graph traversal algorithm that explores all the vertices of a
graph that are reachable from a given source vertex.

2. Depth First Search (DFS): A graph traversal algorithm that explores all the vertices of a graph
that are reachable from a given source vertex, by going as far as possible along each branch
before backtracking.

3. Dijkstra Algorithm: A shortest path algorithm that finds the shortest path between a given
source vertex and all other vertices in a weighted graph.

4. Floyd Warshall Algorithm: An all-pairs shortest path algorithm that finds the shortest path
between all pairs of vertices in a weighted graph.

5. Bellman-Ford Algorithm: A shortest path algorithm that can handle negative weight edges
and detect negative weight cycles.

6. Prim’s algorithm: A minimum spanning tree algorithm that finds the minimum spanning tree
of a weighted, undirected graph.

7. Kruskal’s algorithm: Another minimum spanning tree algorithm that finds the minimum
spanning tree of a weighted, undirected graph.

10. Sliding Window

Window Sliding Technique is a computational technique that aims to reduce the use of nested loops
and replace it with a single loop, thereby reducing the time complexity.

There are several types of sliding window techniques, including:

Fixed-size sliding window: In this technique, the size of the window is fixed, and we move the
window by one position at a time. This is often used to perform operations like finding the maximum
or minimum value in a subarray of fixed size.

Variable-size sliding window: In this technique, the size of the window changes dynamically,
depending on the problem constraints. This technique is often used to find the minimum or
maximum subarray whose sum is greater than or equal to a certain value.