Rotate List
A medium-tier problem at 40% community acceptance, tagged with Linked List, Two Pointers. Reported in interviews at Siemens and 12 others.
Rotate List shows up in assessments at Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Bloomberg, but only 40% of candidates pass it on first try. The problem asks you to rotate a linked list right by k positions. It's medium difficulty and hits the intersection of linked list manipulation and two-pointer logic. Most people can code the brute-force approach, but the trick that makes it efficient separates the prepared candidate from the person who runs out of time. If this lands in your OA and you blank on the pattern, StealthCoder surfaces the working solution in seconds, invisible to the proctor.
Companies that ask "Rotate List"
Rotate 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 naive approach is to pop k nodes from the end and prepend them, repeating k times. That's O(k*n) and slow. The real solution uses a two-pointer scan to find the new head in a single pass. First, walk the list to find its length and the tail. Handle the modulo case where k % length means you're rotating the full list (do nothing) or need a specific rotation point. Then link the tail to the head (create a cycle), walk length minus (k % length) steps, and cut the cycle at the new tail. The problem trips people because they miss the modulo optimization or forget to check if k is a multiple of the list length. Two Pointers is the key topic here. StealthCoder is your hedge if the rotation trick doesn't click under pressure during the live assessment.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Rotate 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.
Rotate List interview FAQ
Why do so many people fail Rotate List on their first try?+
The obvious approach works but is slow. Most candidates iterate k times instead of finding the rotation point in one pass. The modulo optimization and the cycle-then-cut technique are non-obvious without practice. At a 40% acceptance rate, it's a real filter, especially at FAANG-tier companies like Amazon and Meta.
Is Rotate List still asked at big tech companies?+
Yes. It appears in OAs at Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Adobe. It's a medium-difficulty standard that tests linked list fluency and pattern recognition. Not every loop will see it, but it's common enough that it's worth drilling before your assessment window.
What's the key insight that makes Rotate List efficient?+
Treat the list as a circular structure. Walk once to get the length and tail, then compute the rotation point with modulo. Link tail to head, walk to the new tail, and cut. This is O(n) instead of O(k*n). Two Pointers is how you navigate to the cut point in one pass.
What happens if k is larger than the list length?+
Use k % length to find the effective rotation. If the result is zero, the list is unchanged. This case trip up candidates who don't think about the circular nature of the rotation. Handle it early to avoid off-by-one bugs.
How does Rotate List relate to broader linked list patterns?+
It combines traversal (find length and tail), modulo arithmetic (handle wraparound), and pointer manipulation (cycle and cut). These skills show up in other medium linked list problems at Morgan Stanley, LinkedIn, and Oracle. Master this one and you build confidence on harder variants.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Rotate List" on LeetCode →