Reorder List
A medium-tier problem at 63% community acceptance, tagged with Linked List, Two Pointers, Stack. Reported in interviews at Arista Networks and 8 others.
Reorder List is a medium-difficulty linked list problem that shows up in assessments at Google, Amazon, TikTok, and Goldman Sachs. It looks deceptively simple on the surface: you're given a singly linked list and need to reorder it in a specific way. The acceptance rate sits around 62%, which means a solid chunk of candidates either miss the trick or code up something inefficient. If you hit this problem cold in a live assessment and blank on the pattern, StealthCoder runs invisibly behind your screen share and surfaces a working solution in seconds. It's the kind of problem that punishes brute force and rewards knowing the right structural move.
Companies that ask "Reorder List"
Reorder List is the kind of problem that decides whether you pass. StealthCoder reads the problem on screen and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Invisible to screen share. The proctor sees nothing. Made by a working FAANG engineer who treats the OA the way companies treat hiring: as a game with rules you should know.
Get StealthCoderThe trick is recognizing that you can't efficiently jump around a singly linked list. Most candidates start coding a recursive or multi-pass solution and get tangled. The real play is splitting the list in half, reversing the second half, and then merging them back together using two pointers. It's an elegant combination of three smaller operations: find the middle (slow and fast pointers), reverse (iterative or recursive), and interleave (alternate nodes from each half). The topics array flags Linked List, Two Pointers, Stack, and Recursion. Linked List and Two Pointers are the core; Stack and Recursion are optional optimizations or alternative approaches. If you haven't internalized the middle-finding and reversal patterns, you'll waste time in the OA. StealthCoder is your hedge if the pattern doesn't click and you're running low on time.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Reorder List recycles across companies for a reason. It's medium-tier, and most candidates blank under the timer. StealthCoder is the hedge: an AI overlay invisible during screen share. It reads the problem and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Made by a working FAANG engineer who treats the OA the way companies treat hiring: as a game with rules you should know. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Reorder List interview FAQ
Is this still asked at top tech companies?+
Yes. It appears across Google, Amazon, TikTok, LinkedIn, Uber, and others. It's a favorite because it tests whether you understand list manipulation and can chain simple operations correctly. Companies care less about the specific implementation and more about whether you avoid naive, inefficient approaches.
What's the pitfall most candidates hit?+
Trying to do everything in one pass or recursively without a clear structure. The winning move is breaking it into steps: find the midpoint with two pointers, reverse the second half independently, then merge. Candidates who skip the first two steps cleanly tend to make pointer errors in the final merge.
Why do Stack and Recursion appear in the topics if Two Pointers is the answer?+
Stack can be used to reverse the second half iteratively without modifying pointers in place. Recursion is another way to reverse. Two Pointers is the most efficient and common interview approach. Interviewers often ask follow-ups like 'can you do this without a stack?' which pushes you toward the two-pointer solution.
How long should this take in a real assessment?+
If you know the pattern, 20-30 minutes to code and test cleanly. If you're discovering it on the fly, 40-50 minutes. The acceptance rate of 62% suggests that time pressure and pattern recognition are both real barriers. Practice the middle-finding and reversal subproblems separately first.
Is this harder at some companies than others?+
All nine companies in the askedBy list use the same core problem, but interview conditions and follow-ups vary. Some interviewers ask for space complexity analysis or variations (reverse only the second half, for example). The underlying trick stays the same across all of them.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Reorder List" on LeetCode →