119 questions · from 22 interviews · 1 asked more than once

D. E. Shaw interview questions

Q: What questions are asked in D. E. Shaw interviews?

Candidates reported 119 distinct questions across 22 D. E. Shaw interviews. 49 coding and DSA questions, 25 system design questions, 6 behavioural and HR questions, 39 other questions.

Q: Which D. E. Shaw interview questions are asked most often?

The most repeated are "Design LRU Cache" (2 times).

Q: How difficult are D. E. Shaw interview questions?

Of the questions candidates rated, 25% were easy, 35% medium and 40% hard.

Every question candidates reported from their D. E. Shaw interviews, most frequently asked first. Each links to the write-up it came from, so you can see the round and how it went.

D. E. Shaw coding and DSA questions

01
Design LRU Cache
Design and implement a Least Recently Used (LRU) cache. The cache should support get and put operations. The get operation retrieves the value of the key if the key exists, otherwise returns -1. The put operation inserts or updates the value if the key is not…
Medium · Asked 2 times · From DE Shaw Interview, Hyderabad | Lead
02
Divide Dataframes into Equal Chunks
Given an integer array dataframes of size n containing positive elements, each element dataframes[i] must be divided into at least two chunks of equal size. If it is impossible to divide dataframes[i] as is, you may add the minimum number of frames (elements)…
From D. E. Shaw & Co OA -On campus for Internship role.
03
Split Binary String with Frame Constraint
You are given a binary string s and an integer frame. Split s into a set of contiguous substrings without overlap such that: 1. The length of each substring is at most frame. 2. No substring is a perfectly alternating string (e.g., 01, 10, 1010, etc.). Return…
From D. E. Shaw & Co OA -On campus for Internship role.
04
Rearrange characters to avoid adjacent duplicates
Given a sequence of characters, rearrange them so that no two consecutive characters are the same.
From DE SHAW Senior Software Engineer (Futures) Interview
05
Minimize operations to equalize building heights
Given a sequence of building heights, you can in one operation remove one or more floors from any number of buildings (you may also completely destroy a building). Find the minimum number of operations required to make all buildings have the same height.
From DE SHAW Senior Software Engineer (Futures) Interview
06
Exponentiation function design
Design a function that computes a raised to the power of b (a^b).
Easy · From DE SHAW Senior Software Engineer (Futures) Interview
07
Find Node in Level-Order Sorted Complete Tree
Find a specific node in a level-order wise sorted tree. The prerequisite was that the number of nodes is given, and the expectation was to perform a binary search directly on the tree. Conceptually similar to traversing based on complete tree properties like…
Medium · From DE Shaw | SMTS | Bangalore | Rejected
08
Least Demolition Cost to Equalize Building Heights
Given an array representing the number of floors in each building (e.g., floors = [5, 2, 9, 3]), you may demolish any number of floors from any building (you cannot add floors). Demolished floors add to your cost. If a building is completely demolished, it…
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
09
Print Odd and Even Numbers with Two Threads in Sequence
Write two threads: one prints odd numbers, the other prints even numbers. The combined output must be in sequential order (1, 2, 3, 4, …).
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
10
Basic Calculator
A LeetCode Hard problem involving evaluating a string that represents a basic calculator expression. The expression can contain parentheses, addition, subtraction, and numbers. The task is to compute the result of the expression.
Hard · From Interview Experience – DeShaw (Testing Automation / QA Role)
11
MST on Complete Graph with 0/1 Edges
A complete graph is a graph where each pair of vertices is connected by an edge. Given an undirected weighted complete graph with gnodes vertices, the weight of each edge is either 0 or 1. There are exactly gedges edges provided in the form of two arrays,…
From DE shaw OA | Scary question tbh
12
Maximize System Redundancy with One Server Flip Operation
There are n servers in a data center. The operational status of each server is given by the binary string servers , where servers[i] = '1' if the i th server is operational, and servers[i] = '0' if it is not. The data center can perform at most one operation:…
From DE shaw OA | Scary question tbh
13
Transform Array to Target with Minimum Operations
Given two arrays source and target of n integers, find the minimum number of operations required to make the array source equal to the array target. In each operation, you can choose any even-length subarray and alternately add and subtract 1 from each…
From D.E. Shaw SDE Interview Question
14
Maximize Projects with Training and Execution Dependencies
Given an array trainingdays representing the training duration for N projects, and an array executiondays where each element is a pair [startday, value] for each project. You need to schedule these projects. Training for a project must complete before its…
Hard · From Deshaw SMTS Hackerrank Coding Test 2025
15
Maximize Minimum Area of Pizza Slices
You are given N pizzas, each with a specific radius. You need to divide these pizzas into a total of requiredSegments equal-sized pieces. You can cut any single pizza into any number of equal-sized pieces. The goal is to maximize the area of the smallest…
Hard · From Deshaw SMTS Hackerrank Coding Test 2025
16
Codeforces Problem G (Contest 1927)
Problem G from Codeforces Contest 1927.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
17
Codeforces Problem E (Problemset 1861)
Problem E from Codeforces Problemset 1861.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
18
Implement Randomized Set (Insert, Delete, GetRandom O(1))
Implement the insert, delete, and getRandom methods for a data structure that supports all operations in average O(1) time. Follow-up: how to handle duplicate elements.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
19
Binary String Triplet with Distinct Adjacent Values
Given a binary string s of length n (each character is '0' or '1'). Find the number of ways to pick three indices i < j < k such that: s[i] != s[j] (no two adjacent picks have the same value) s[j] != s[k] constraint : n <=2 10 ^ 5
From D.E. shaw Online assessment (summer intern '26)
20
Minimize Moves to Make Task Groups Non-Increasing
You have n groups of tasks in a line. Each group i has tasks[i] tasks. You can do the following operation any number of times: Choose a group i (1 ≤ i ≤ n): If i 1, move 1 task from group i to group i-1. This changes: tasks[i] -= 1 tasks[i-1] += 1 If i < n,…
From D.E. shaw Online assessment (summer intern '26)
21
Count Valid Arrays with Time Complexity Constraints
You are given an array a of length n. Each a[i] represents the time complexity allowed at position i. Your task is to count the number of valid arrays b of length n satisfying: For each position i (1 ≤ i ≤ n), 1 ≤ b[i] ≤ a[i]. No two consecutive elements are…
From D.E. shaw Online assessment (summer intern '26)
22
Painting the Walls (related)
The first question in the Online Assessment was somewhat related to the LeetCode problem 'Painting the Walls'.
From DE Shaw | SMTS[Reject]
23
Buy and Sell Stock II and III
I was asked to solve 'Buy and Sell Stock - 2' and 'Buy and Sell Stock - 3'. The expectation was to explain the solutions and run the test cases.
From DE Shaw | SMTS[Reject]
24
Binary Tree Cameras
Solved Binary Tree Cameras problem.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
25
Maximize Score of Numbers in Ranges
Solved the Maximize Score of Numbers in Ranges problem.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad

24 more in the D. E. Shaw write-ups.

D. E. Shaw system design questions

01
ATCS system design
Design an Air Traffic Control System (ATCS) that manages airplane take‑off scheduling and landing between source and destination, handling edge cases such as multiple flights requesting the same take‑off time.
From DE SHAW Senior Software Engineer (Futures) Interview
02
Leaderboard design for top 10 users
Design a leaderboard for a game where users sign in, play, obtain scores, and can delete their accounts. The leaderboard must always display the top 10 users by score.
From DE SHAW Senior Software Engineer (Futures) Interview
03
Design a Concurrent HashMap
Explain how you would design a thread‑safe hash map, covering aspects such as locking strategy, handling concurrent reads/writes, resizing, and collision resolution.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
04
Low‑Level Design of a Food Delivery App
Provide a low‑level design for a food‑delivery platform similar to Swiggy or Zomato, covering core components, data models, and interactions between services.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
05
Low‑Level Design of a Job Scheduler Library
Design a library that allows users to submit jobs and specify recurring schedules (e.g., every 30 minutes, every 6 hours). Discuss job representation, scheduling algorithms, persistence, and fault tolerance.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
06
Low‑Level Design of Uber‑Like Ride Matching System
Describe a detailed low‑level design for a ride‑matching service similar to Uber, focusing on request handling, driver‑rider matching, scalability, and user‑experience improvements.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
07
High‑Level Design of a Collaborative Document System (Google Docs)
Discuss a high‑level architecture for a real‑time collaborative document editing platform, covering OT (Operational Transformation) layer, synchronization, storage, and conflict resolution.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
08
Low‑Level Design of a Coupon Management System
Create a low‑level design for a coupon management system, including coupon generation, validation, expiration, and application to orders.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience - Lead / Principal
09
Implementing Retry Mechanism for API Calls
Describe how to design and implement a robust retry mechanism for unreliable API calls. Consider factors such as exponential backoff, maximum number of retries, circuit breakers, and handling transient vs. permanent failures.
From DE Shaw Interview, Hyderabad | Lead
10
Design Distributed Cache
Design a distributed cache system. Explain how you would handle data consistency, scalability, fault tolerance, cache invalidation strategies, and typical deployment considerations in a large-scale distributed environment.
Hard · From DE Shaw Interview, Hyderabad | Lead
11
File Upload Failure Debugging
A system that was working correctly earlier is now failing during file upload. The task is to identify possible causes for this failure, determine how to trace the root cause, and suggest tools, logs, or monitoring mechanisms to use for diagnosis.
From Interview Experience – DeShaw (Testing Automation / QA Role)
12
Design Database Class in Java
Design a database in the form of a Java Class and implement the functionality to set data types, add primary key, and configure the auto increment feature. For example, Student s = new Student(...) should create a new database table s.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
13
Design Browser History
I was given a task to design browser history. We had a good 40-minute discussion on this.
From DE Shaw | SMTS[Reject]
14
Design Chat Application (LLD)
I was asked to design a Chat Application at a Low-Level Design (LLD) round, which included at least 5 follow-up questions.
From DE Shaw | SMTS[Reject]
15
Low-Level Design of Stack Overflow
Low-level design discussion on Stack Overflow.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
16
Low-Level Design of Google Classroom
Low-level design of Google Classroom (teachers, students, subjects).
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
17
DevOps & System Concepts
Questions on CI/CD, differences between containers and VMs, and strategies to revert deployments for a bad release.
From DE SHAW - SMTS - Application Engineer
18
Crickinfo Data Aggregation System Design
How would you implement something like Crickinfo. there can be multiple vendors from which data is coming. some vendors can have information like average, strike rate while others can have info like total runs, centuires etc.
From DE shaw | Phone Screen | Hyderbad | Dec2024 | Reject
19
Distributed Systems Snapshot Detection
What algorithm helps in detecting snapshots in distributed systems? How does it maintain consistency?
From DE Shaw Interview Experience | India | Software Development Engineer (SMTS) | oct 2024
20
RDBMS to NoSQL Migration Challenges
How did you manage the shift from a relational database to NoSQL, ensuring data consistency and handling challenges like schema evolution?
From DE Shaw Interview Experience | India | Software Development Engineer (SMTS) | oct 2024
21
NFV vs. SDN Comparison
What are the differences between Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN)? How do they change traditional network architecture?
From DE Shaw Interview Experience | India | Software Development Engineer (SMTS) | oct 2024
22
MVCC vs. Traditional Locking
Compare multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) with traditional locking in databases. How do they affect transaction isolation?
From DE Shaw Interview Experience | India | Software Development Engineer (SMTS) | oct 2024
23
Reliable & Low-Latency Financial Messaging
A financial trading application operates on version 2.31 of a custom protocol, how would you ensure reliable message delivery while maintaining low latency in the face of network fluctuations? How you would integrate TCP for critical transactions and leverage…
From DE Shaw Interview Experience | India | Software Development Engineer (SMTS) | oct 2024
24
Design Browser History Data Structure
Design a data structure for browser history with the following functionalities: Add a link Remove a link Each link has many keywords, search by keyword Print all links in inserted order Example: '/google/search' has 'google' and 'search' as keywords Links…
From DE Shaw | MTS | June-July 2024
25
Design Flight Booking System
Design a Flight Booking System, specifically focusing on how to find and manage multiple-stop flight schedules.
From DE Shaw | MTS | June-July 2024

D. E. Shaw behavioural and HR questions

01
Typical Day at Work
Describe a typical day at work.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
02
Handled Critical Problem Collaboratively
Describe a time when I handled a critical problem collaboratively.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
03
Why DE Shaw?
Why DE Shaw?
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
04
Behavioral Questions
Introduction, challenging task you have done, why DE SHAW.
From DE SHAW - SMTS - Application Engineer
05
Most Challenging Task
Describe the most challenging task you faced in the last five years.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience | India | Software Development Engineer (SMTS) | oct 2024
06
Agile Development Process
Explain the agile development process you follow in your current role.
From DE Shaw Interview Experience | India | Software Development Engineer (SMTS) | oct 2024

D. E. Shaw other questions

01
Task completion time with n threads on a single‑core processor
Given n threads and a task that takes x time to complete on a single‑core machine, determine how long it will take to complete the task.
From DE SHAW Senior Software Engineer (Futures) Interview
02
HashMap vs ConcurrentHashMap Differences
Discuss the key differences between Java's HashMap and ConcurrentHashMap. Elaborate on their thread-safety, performance characteristics, internal working, and suitable use cases for each.
From DE Shaw Interview, Hyderabad | Lead
03
Handling Memory Out of Bounds in Java
Explain common causes of OutOfMemoryError in Java applications and describe effective strategies and best practices to diagnose, prevent, and handle such memory-related issues.
From DE Shaw Interview, Hyderabad | Lead
04
Exception Handling in Java
Discuss the principles and best practices for exception handling in Java. Cover topics like checked vs. unchecked exceptions, the try-catch-finally block, custom exceptions, and when to use specific exception handling patterns.
From DE Shaw Interview, Hyderabad | Lead
05
Logic Puzzle
A logic-based puzzle was asked toward the end of the interview. The exact details of the puzzle were not specified, but it was described as a logic-based challenge.
From Interview Experience – DeShaw (Testing Automation / QA Role)
06
Explain Abstract Classes
Explain abstract classes and then gave a problem to implement using abstract class.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
07
What is Polymorphism?
Explain Polymorphism.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
08
Explain Types of Polymorphism
Explain the different types of Polymorphism.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
09
What is Deadlock and its Conditions?
Explain what a deadlock is and what are the necessary conditions for a deadlock to occur.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
10
DBMS Indexing and Types
Explain what indexing means in DBMS and describe the different types of indexing.
From De Shaw || 6 Months + Performance Based || SDE
11
Primary vs Alternate Keys
Discussion on the difference between primary and alternate keys.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
12
Function Overloading/Overriding in Java main()
Is function overloading/overriding possible in Java main()?
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
13
Encapsulation vs Abstraction
Discussion on Encapsulation vs Abstraction.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
14
SQL Query: First Login Time Per User
Given a history table with columns (userLoginId, location, loginTime), write a query to fetch the first login time per userLoginId (note: IDs can repeat).
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
15
Method Hiding
What is method hiding? (Hint: It’s not magic, it’s just static.)
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
16
Macros in C++
What are macros in C++? (Answer: The preprocessor’s version of ‘YOLO’. )
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
17
Composition vs Inheritance
Discussion on Composition vs Inheritance — or why has-a sometimes beats is-a.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
18
SQL Query: Table A-B Difference
SQL query for A-B table difference.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
19
DBMS Isolation
What is isolation in DBMS? How is it handled at the application level?
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
20
Indexing Strategies (B-Tree, B+Tree, AVL)
Discussion on indexing strategies, B-Tree vs B+Tree, why not AVL?
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
21
OS Scheduling Strategies
Discussion on OS scheduling strategies and optimal approaches.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
22
32-bit vs 64-bit CPUs
Discussion on 32-bit vs 64-bit CPUs.
From DE shaw Interview Experience | Member Technical (MTS) | India | January 2025 [Offer] | 2023 Grad
23
Core C++ Concepts: Maps vs Unordered Maps, Memory, Multithreading
Deep dive into maps vs unordered maps, time complexities, memory management, and multithreading basics.
From Interview Experience at D. E. Shaw | QTE Role | April 2025
24
React Concepts: Hooks & HOCs
Discussion on React hooks, custom hooks, and Higher-Order Components (HOCs).
From DE SHAW - SMTS - Application Engineer
25
Performance Optimization Techniques
Discussion on various performance optimization techniques.
From DE SHAW - SMTS - Application Engineer

14 more in the D. E. Shaw write-ups.