Day 3 Tips: Tackling Stack Problems and Preparing for a Career in DevOps

Solved Problems 🎯

Today, I focused on stack-based problems, tackling three important questions that strengthened my understanding of stack operations and expression evaluation.

1️⃣ Valid Parentheses (🟢 Easy)

✅ Approach:

• Used a stack to track open brackets and validate matching pairs.

• Checked for proper nesting and balanced parentheses.

💡 Key Learning:

• The stack is a perfect data structure for this problem.

• Handling edge cases like unbalanced or extra brackets is crucial.

---

2️⃣ Min Stack (🟡 Medium)

✅ Approach:

• Implemented a stack that supports push, pop, top, and retrieving the minimum element in O(1) time.

• Used an auxiliary stack or a min-tracking technique.

💡 Key Learning:

• Keeping track of the minimum efficiently is tricky but can be optimized with an extra stack or maintaining a min variable.

---

3️⃣ Evaluate Reverse Polish Notation (🟡 Medium)

✅ Approach:

• Used a stack to process postfix notation (Reverse Polish Notation).

• Pushed numbers onto the stack and performed operations when encountering an operator.

💡 Key Learning:

• Stack-based evaluation of expressions is powerful.

• Handling different operators and ensuring correct precedence is essential.

---

DevOps Interview Preparation ⚙️

After solving these problems, I shifted my focus to preparing for an upcoming DevOps interview. My preparation included:
✅ Reviewing Cloud Concepts (AWS, Docker, Kubernetes)
✅ CI/CD Pipelines & Automation (GitHub Actions, Jenkins)
✅ Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible)

It was a productive day balancing DSA practice with DevOps preparation! 🚀

---

Next Steps ⏭️

🔹 Solve more stack-based and queue-related problems.
🔹 Continue DevOps interview prep and brush up on networking concepts.
🔹 Stay consistent with daily problem-solving!

Thanks for reading! 📌 Let’s keep pushing forward! 💪