Algorithmic Problem-Solving and Data Structure Selection Questions

The higher-order meta-skill of attacking an unfamiliar problem: recognizing problem archetypes and mapping them to known techniques, decomposing under constraints, and choosing, composing, or designing the right data structures to meet specified operation costs (LRU cache, min-stack, ordered maps, disjoint-set/union-find). Covers reasoning about trade-offs between competing structures and approaches, working through medium-to-hard problems methodically, handling problem variations, and communicating an approach before coding. The connective-tissue topic that ties the individual structure and algorithm topics together, rather than any single structure or algorithm.