Stacks and Queues quietly appear inside array, string, graph, tree, and even DP problems.
By the end of this chapter, you'll stop seeing "stack questions" and start recognizing
monotonic stack, expression parsing, deque, and BFS queue patterns.
📖 CHAPTER 4 — Stack & Queue (40 Problems)
Goal
Master these patterns:
● Stack Basics
● Queue Basics
● Monotonic Stack
● Monotonic Queue (Deque)
● Expression Evaluation
● Parentheses Problems
● Next Greater/Smaller Element
● Simulation
● Design Problems
● BFS Queue Applications
Level 1 — Stack Basics (8)
# LC Problem Difficulty Pattern
1 20 Valid Parentheses Easy Stack
2 225 Implement Stack using Queues Easy Design
3 232 Implement Queue using Stacks Easy Design
4 682 Baseball Game Easy Stack Simulation
5 844 Backspace String Compare Easy Stack
6 1047 Remove All Adjacent Duplicates In String Easy Stack
7 1544 Make The String Great Easy Stack
8 1475 Final Prices With a Special Discount Easy Stack
Level 2 — Monotonic Stack (10)
These are among the highest ROI interview problems.
# LC Problem Difficulty Pattern
9 496 Next Greater Element I Easy Monotonic Stack
10 503 Next Greater Element II Medium Circular Monotonic Stack
11 739 Daily Temperatures Medium Monotonic Stack
12 901 Online Stock Span Medium Monotonic Stack
13 84 Largest Rectangle in Histogram Hard Monotonic Stack
14 85 Maximal Rectangle Hard Histogram
15 42 Trapping Rain Water Hard Stack
16 1019 Next Greater Node In Linked List Medium Monotonic Stack
17 1944 Number of Visible People in a Queue Hard Monotonic Stack
18 2289 Steps to Make Array Non-decreasing Hard Monotonic Stack
Level 3 — Parentheses Problems (6)
# LC Problem Difficulty Pattern
19 32 Longest Valid Parentheses Hard Stack
20 921 Minimum Add to Make Parentheses Valid Medium Stack
21 1249 Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses Medium Stack
22 1541 Minimum Insertions to Balance Parentheses Medium Greedy + Stack
23 1190 Reverse Substrings Between Parentheses Medium Stack
24 856 Score of Parentheses Medium Stack
Level 4 — Expression Evaluation (5)
# LC Problem Difficulty Pattern
25 150 Evaluate Reverse Polish Notation Medium Stack
26 224 Basic Calculator Hard Stack
27 227 Basic Calculator II Medium Stack
28 772 Basic Calculator III (Premium) Hard Parsing
29 394 Decode String Medium Stack
Level 5 — Queue & Deque (5)
# LC Problem Difficulty Pattern
30 933 Number of Recent Calls Easy Queue
31 622 Design Circular Queue Medium Queue
32 641 Design Circular Deque Medium Deque
33 239 Sliding Window Maximum Hard Monotonic Queue
34 862 Shortest Subarray with Sum at Least K Hard Deque + Prefix Sum
Level 6 — Advanced Stack/Queue (6)
# LC Problem Difficulty Pattern
35 155 Min Stack Medium Stack Design
36 895 Maximum Frequency Stack Hard Stack + HashMap
37 1673 Find the Most Competitive Subsequence Medium Monotonic Stack
38 735 Asteroid Collision Medium Stack Simulation
39 946 Validate Stack Sequences Medium Stack
40 1209 Remove All Adjacent Duplicates in String II Medium Stack
⭐ Must Master (Top 15)
These show up repeatedly in product-company interviews:
1. Valid Parentheses
2. Implement Queue using Stacks
3. Implement Stack using Queues
4. Next Greater Element I
5. Daily Temperatures
6. Online Stock Span
7. Largest Rectangle in Histogram
8. Maximal Rectangle
9. Longest Valid Parentheses
10.Evaluate Reverse Polish Notation
11.Basic Calculator II
12.Decode String
13.Sliding Window Maximum
14.Min Stack
15.Asteroid Collision
Core Patterns You Must Master
Pattern 1 — Monotonic Increasing Stack
● Next Greater Element
● Daily Temperatures
● Largest Rectangle
● Stock Span
Pattern 2 — Monotonic Decreasing Stack
● Previous Greater Element
● Competitive Subsequence
● Visible People
Pattern 3 — Parentheses Matching
● Valid Parentheses
● Longest Valid Parentheses
● Score of Parentheses
● Minimum Remove
Pattern 4 — Expression Parsing
● Reverse Polish Notation
● Basic Calculator I
● Basic Calculator II
● Decode String
Pattern 5 — Monotonic Queue (Deque)
● Sliding Window Maximum
● Shortest Subarray with Sum at Least K
Pattern 6 — Design
● Min Stack
● Circular Queue
● Circular Deque
● Frequency Stack
📚 Concepts to Learn Alongside
As you solve these problems, understand:
● Array-based vs Linked List-based stack/queue implementations
● Amortized analysis for stack operations
● Monotonic stack invariants
● Monotonic queue (deque) invariants
● Infix, postfix, and prefix expressions
● Shunting Yard algorithm (conceptually)
● Queue-based BFS (preparation for Graphs and Trees)
🎯 Interview Advice
If you can solve Daily Temperatures, Largest Rectangle in Histogram, and Sliding
Window Maximum confidently, you'll have mastered three of the most reusable patterns in
interview problem solving. They reappear in many disguised forms across arrays, graphs,
and dynamic programming.
🏆 Chapter Difficulty
⭐⭐⭐☆☆ (Intermediate)