When you’re preparing for a FAANG interview, one question stays at the center of your mind: What will they ask me?
Each company may have its own process, but the coding interview patterns behind the questions stay the same. These interviews focus on how well you solve problems, communicate your ideas, and handle complexity under pressure.
You are expected to write clean code, optimize it in real time, and explain your thought process clearly. That can feel overwhelming if you’re not sure what to expect. The good news is that you can prepare in a focused and effective way by understanding the types of questions asked most often.
This blog helps you do just that. You’ll go through a practical breakdown of the most asked FAANG coding interview questions. Each section will show you why a problem is important, what pattern it tests, and how to approach it during an interview.
The top categories of FAANG coding interview questions
Before jumping into the list, here are the categories that show up the most often in FAANG coding interviews. These areas are where interviewers focus because they reflect core computer science principles:
- Arrays and Strings: Searching, rotating, merging, and pattern matching
- Linked Lists: Reversals, cycle detection, merging
- Binary Trees and Binary Search Trees: Traversal, depth, balancing
- Dynamic Programming: Subset problems, knapsack, overlapping subproblems
- Graphs: BFS, DFS, topological sort, connectivity
- Stacks and Queues: Monotonic stack, sliding window
- Heaps and Priority Queues: Kth element problems, scheduling
- Hash Maps and Sets: Frequency counting, windowed search
- Recursion and Backtracking: Permutations, subsets, game solving
- Bit Manipulation: XOR tricks, parity checks
- Math and Logic: Modular arithmetic, number properties
You don’t need to master every topic at once. Start with the basics, and gradually build up fluency in the patterns that appear in the next section.
Most asked FAANG coding interview questions and how to tackle them
When you go into a FAANG interview, you are expected to solve problems that test both your understanding of core computer science and your ability to communicate clearly. The questions themselves are often based on well-known patterns. But what matters is how you approach them. Here is a breakdown of the most asked FAANG coding interview questions and a step-by-step guide on how to tackle each one.
1. Two Sum
Problem: Given an array of integers and a target sum, return the indices of the two numbers that add up to the target.
Why it’s asked: This question tests your ability to use hash maps and reason about lookup efficiency.
How to tackle it:
- Create an empty hash map.
- Iterate through the array.
- For each number, calculate the complement.
- Check if the complement exists in the hash map.
- If it does, return the indices.
- If it doesn’t, store the number with its index.
Pattern: Hash map + array traversal
2. Merge K Sorted Lists
Problem: Merge k sorted linked lists into one sorted linked list.
Why it’s asked: This problem checks your ability to work with linked lists and use a heap efficiently.
How to tackle it:
- Use a min-heap (priority queue).
- Insert the head node of each list into the heap.
- Extract the minimum node and add it to the result.
- If that node has a next node, insert it into the heap.
- Repeat until the heap is empty.
Pattern: Heap + list traversal
3. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters
Problem: Find the length of the longest substring without repeating characters.
Why it’s asked: This tests your ability to use sliding windows and manage state with hash sets.
How to tackle it:
- Use a sliding window with two pointers.
- Maintain a hash set for characters in the current window.
- Move the right pointer to add characters.
- If a duplicate is found, move the left pointer until the duplicate is removed.
- Track the maximum window length.
Pattern: Sliding window + set
4. Clone Graph
Problem: Clone an undirected graph.
Why it’s asked: This checks your understanding of graph traversal and mapping.
How to tackle it:
- Use DFS or BFS to traverse the graph.
- Create a hash map to track visited nodes and their clones.
- For each node, copy it and recursively copy its neighbors.
Pattern: Graph traversal + hash map
5. Detect Cycle in a Linked List
Problem: Determine if a linked list has a cycle.
Why it’s asked: This tests your knowledge of pointer manipulation and cycle detection.
How to tackle it:
- Use Floyd’s Cycle Detection Algorithm.
- Move one pointer one step at a time, and another two steps.
- If they meet, a cycle exists.
Pattern: Two-pointer technique
6. Course Schedule
Problem: Determine if you can finish all courses given prerequisites (detect cycles in a directed graph).
Why it’s asked: This is a real-world problem modeled as a topological sort.
How to tackle it:
- Build an adjacency list of prerequisites.
- Use DFS to detect cycles.
- Maintain visited and recursion stack arrays to track the state.
Pattern: Topological sort + DFS
7. Kth Largest Element in an Array
Problem: Find the kth largest element in an unsorted array.
Why it’s asked: It measures your ability to manage heaps and reason about time complexity.
How to tackle it:
- Use a min-heap of size k.
- Insert elements while maintaining heap size.
- Return the root of the heap.
Pattern: Heap + selection
8. Valid Parentheses
Problem: Check if a string containing brackets is valid.
Why it’s asked: This tests your use of stacks and character matching.
How to tackle it:
- Use a stack.
- For every opening bracket, push it onto the stack.
- For every closing bracket, check if it matches the top of the stack.
- Return true if the stack is empty at the end.
Pattern: Stack + string traversal
9. Find Median from Data Stream
Problem: Continuously return the median as new numbers arrive.
Why it’s asked: This tests advanced heap use and real-time data management.
How to tackle it:
- Use two heaps: a max-heap for the left half and a min-heap for the right.
- Balance the heaps after every insertion.
- Return the average of the two heap tops (or the top of the larger heap).
Pattern: Dual heap + real-time processing
10. Word Break
Problem: Determine if a string can be segmented into valid words from a dictionary.
Why it’s asked: This evaluates dynamic programming and recursion optimization.
How to tackle it:
- Use a boolean DP array of the same length as the string.
- For each substring, check if it exists in the dictionary.
- Use memoization to avoid recalculating.
Pattern: DP + string segmentation
11. Lowest Common Ancestor
Problem: Find the lowest common ancestor of two nodes in a binary tree.
Why it’s asked: This checks your recursion skills and tree traversal logic.
How to tackle it:
- Recursively explore left and right subtrees.
- Return the current node if it matches either of the target nodes.
- If both left and right calls return non-null, return the current node.
Pattern: Tree recursion + base case recognition
12. Longest Palindromic Substring
Problem: Find the longest substring that is a palindrome.
Why it’s asked: This question tests your ability to expand search windows and manage string indices.
How to tackle it:
- For each character, expand outward to find odd and even-length palindromes.
- Track the longest one found.
- Avoid brute force by skipping impossible centers.
Pattern: Expand around the center
How to practice FAANG coding interview questions
Practice is your superpower. But it works best when it’s structured.
Here’s how you can prepare for FAANG coding interviews effectively:
- Use a platform like LeetCode, HackerRank, or Educative’s Grokking Coding Interview Patterns
- Track your progress by topic and difficulty
- Focus on patterns more than repetition
- Practice whiteboarding or talking out loud
- Schedule mock interviews to simulate real timing and pressure
- Review your wrong answers and redo them after a few days
- Bookmark frequent questions and revisit them regularly
You don’t need to complete every problem. You just need to deeply understand the types that show up again and again.
Final thoughts
FAANG coding interview questions are not just about algorithms. They’re about showing that you can solve real engineering problems with clarity and precision.
Start small. Choose one category. Master 5 questions from it. Then move to the next. You’ll start to notice connections between problems and build your own internal library of solutions.
This kind of preparation builds not just technical skills but also the confidence to explain, iterate, and defend your choices, which are skills that matter even after the interview. Once you’ve worked through these 50, check out the full Blind 75 list to keep pushing your prep further.
