Find Resultant Array After Removing Anagrams
A easy-tier problem at 59% community acceptance, tagged with Array, Hash Table, String. Reported in interviews at J.P. Morgan and 0 others.
You're given an array of strings and you need to remove all strings that are anagrams of a previous string, keeping only the first occurrence of each anagram group. It's an easy problem but the acceptance rate sits at 59%, meaning almost half the candidates either overthink it or miss the implementation detail. J.P. Morgan has asked this. The trick is knowing how to represent anagrams in a way that lets you detect them without sorting every pair. If you blank on the pattern during your OA, StealthCoder surfaces a working solution in seconds, invisible to the proctor.
Companies that ask "Find Resultant Array After Removing Anagrams"
Find Resultant Array After Removing Anagrams 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 standard approach: sort the characters in each string to create a canonical form, then use a hash set to track which canonical forms you've already seen. The first string with a given canonical form gets kept. Everyone else gets filtered out. The pitfall is trying to compare strings directly for anagram-ness by sorting them one-by-one inside nested loops, which kills efficiency and burns time. Another trap is mutating the input array instead of building a new result list. Since the problem only requires filtering in the order given, you don't need any fancy tree or heap structure. A single pass with a hash set is enough. If the pattern doesn't click immediately during your assessment, StealthCoder runs invisibly and shows you the canonical-form approach so you can move on.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Find Resultant Array After Removing Anagrams recycles across companies for a reason. It's easy-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.
Find Resultant Array After Removing Anagrams interview FAQ
Is this problem actually easy or is the 59% acceptance misleading?+
It's genuinely easy algorithmically, but the 59% rate suggests people either overthink the detection logic or struggle with the string-sorting step. Once you lock in the 'sort to canonical form' trick, it's a four-line solution in most languages.
What's the fastest way to check if two strings are anagrams?+
Sort both strings and compare. If the sorted versions match, they're anagrams. Implement it once as a helper, or better yet, just sort each string upfront and use a hash set to track canonical forms you've seen.
Do I need to preserve the original string order in the result?+
Yes. You keep strings in the order they appear in the input. Only remove duplicates (anagrams of earlier strings). This is why a single forward pass with a hash set works perfectly.
Will J.P. Morgan ask follow-ups on this problem?+
Likely. After you solve it, expect questions like 'how would you handle case-insensitivity' or 'what if you can't sort (e.g., restricted character set)'. Know the character-frequency map alternative using a hash or Counter.
Is this problem still asked even though it's easy?+
Yes, J.P. Morgan has reported it. Easy problems often appear early in assessments to build confidence, or as part of a multi-problem set where speed matters. Don't sleep on it just because it's easy.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Find Resultant Array After Removing Anagrams" on LeetCode →