DSA Problem List

Java Backend Developer | TCS · Infosys · Accenture · Deloitte | 5–8 LPA

MUST-D
High priority — covers 70% of interview questions
O

EASY Beginner friendly — do these first

MEDIUM One step up — commonly asked in interviews

5 must-do / 10 total
01 Arrays — the foundation
Start here. 80% of OA questions touch arrays.

EASY
■ Two Sum

EASY
■ Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock

EASY
■ Maximum Subarray (Kadane's Algorithm)

EASY
■ Move Zeroes to end

EASY
■ Rotate Array by K places

EASY
■ Remove duplicates from sorted array

EASY
■ Find second largest element

EASY
■ Union and Intersection of two arrays

MEDIUM
■ Majority Element (Boyer-Moore)

MEDIUM
■ Product of Array Except Self

6 must-do / 10 total
02 Strings — very high frequency
Story problems love strings. Learn these patterns.

EASY
■ Reverse a string / words in a string

EASY
■ Check if string is palindrome

EASY
■ Check if two strings are anagrams

EASY
■ Count vowels and consonants

EASY
■ First non-repeating character

EASY
■ Longest common prefix

EASY
■ Valid parentheses (using stack)

EASY
■ String compression (aaabbc -> a3b2c1)

MEDIUM
■ Count and say problem

MEDIUM
■ Roman to Integer conversion
 4 must-do / 6 total
03 HashMap — the secret weapon
Most story problems are secretly HashMap problems.

EASY
■ Frequency count of characters

EASY
■ Find duplicates in array

EASY
■ Two Sum using HashMap

MEDIUM
■ Group anagrams together

MEDIUM
■ Subarray with zero sum

MEDIUM
■ Longest consecutive sequence

3 must-do / 6 total
04 Sliding Window + Two Pointers
Solves 'longest / shortest / max' story problems.

MEDIUM
■ Longest substring without repeating characters

EASY
■ Maximum sum subarray of size K

MEDIUM
■ Minimum window substring

EASY
■ Remove duplicates using two pointers

MEDIUM
■ Container with most water

MEDIUM
■ 3Sum problem

2 must-do / 5 total
05 Binary Search — OA favourite
Appears in 40% of online assessments.

EASY
■ Binary search in sorted array

MEDIUM
■ First and last position of element

MEDIUM
■ Search in rotated sorted array

MEDIUM
■ Find peak element

EASY
■ Square root using binary search

3 must-do / 6 total
06 Stack & Queue
You know basics. Now do these patterns.

EASY
■ Valid Parentheses

MEDIUM
■ Next Greater Element

MEDIUM
■ Min stack (getMin in O(1))

EASY
■ Implement queue using two stacks
 MEDIUM
■ Sliding window maximum (deque)

MEDIUM
■ Balanced parentheses generation

4 must-do / 6 total
07 Linked List
Usually 1 LL question per technical round.

EASY
■ Reverse a linked list

MEDIUM
■ Detect cycle in linked list (Floyd's)

EASY
■ Find middle of linked list

MEDIUM
■ Merge two sorted linked lists

MEDIUM
■ Remove Nth node from end

MEDIUM
■ Palindrome linked list check

1 must-do / 6 total
08 Recursion & Basic Math
Builds intuition. Needed for explaining solutions.

EASY
■ Fibonacci (recursive + iterative)

EASY
■ Factorial recursive

EASY
■ Power of a number (fast exponentiation)

EASY
■ Check prime number

EASY
■ Count digits, reverse digits

EASY
■ GCD and LCM

3 must-do / 5 total
09 Sorting — know when to use which
Know concepts, not just memorised code.

EASY
■ Bubble sort implementation

EASY
■ Selection sort implementation

MEDIUM
■ Merge sort (divide and conquer)

MEDIUM
■ Sort array of 0s, 1s, 2s (Dutch flag)

MEDIUM
■ Find kth largest element

Will this be enough to crack 5–8 LPA jobs?

Q: Which companies fall in 5–8 LPA range?
TCS (Digital/Ninja), Infosys (SP/DSE), Accenture, Deloitte, Capgemini, Wipro, Cognizant, HCL, L&T; Infotech,
Mphasis, Hexaware. Also startups and mid-size product companies at this range.

Q: Is this problem list enough for the coding rounds?

YES — for service-based companies and most 5–8 LPA roles, 100%. Their OA rounds use Easy to Easy-Medium
problems. These 55 problems cover every pattern that appears in those assessments. The must-do problems
alone (25 problems) cover 70% of what gets asked.

Q: What else is needed beyond DSA?

DSA is only one part. You also need: Core Java (OOP — inheritance, polymorphism, abstraction, interfaces),
Collections framework (ArrayList, HashMap, Stack, Queue), Basic SQL (SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY, subqueries),
1–2 personal projects to discuss, and OS/Networking basics (only for some companies like Deloitte).

Q: What about story-type questions?

Story questions are pattern problems in disguise. After finishing sections 3 (HashMap) and 4 (Sliding Window),
practice translating 5 story problems per day from GFG before coding them. The translation skill develops in 1–2
weeks and makes story questions feel easy.

Q: Honest timeline to be ready?

6 weeks of consistent 1.5–2 hrs/day practice is enough. Week 1–2: Arrays + Strings + HashMap. Week 3: Binary
Search + Two Pointers + Sliding Window. Week 4: Stack/Queue + Linked List + Recursion. Week 5–6: Mixed
practice + OA mock tests on HackerRank and GFG.

Q: Where to practise?
LeetCode (filter by Easy, then do topic-wise). GFG — search 'TCS coding questions GFG' and 'Infosys coding
questions GFG' for company-specific sets. HackerRank for Java-specific OA simulation.

Total: 55 problems | Must-do: 25 problems | Easy: 28 | Medium: 27