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D. E. Shaw interview guide

Quant hedge fund with large New York and India tech teams. Interviews mix hard DSA with OS, DBMS, OOP, LLD, and math rounds. Updated October 2026.

D. E. Shaw at a glance
Category Finance and quant
Intern level Software Developer Intern (US: New York, 12 weeks, June to August 2027; posting: applicants are 'usually approaching their final year of full-time study'). India: summer internships of 8 to 12 weeks (deshawindia.com); 6-month on-campus SDE internships with a performance-based conversion are reported by candidates (LeetCode, Aug 2025), not described on the official site.
New grad level Member Technical (MT / 'Member, Technical Staff'), entry level on Levels.fyi; US posting title 'Software Developer' (open to all levels).
0 to 3 years Member Technical (MT) for freshers to about 2 to 3 yrs (Levels.fyi US: MT typically 1 to 3 yrs experience; India MT offers in Jan 2025 went to candidates with about 1.5 yrs). Senior Member Technical (SMT/SMTS) for about 2 to 5 yrs (India SMTS candidates on LeetCode report 2.1 to 3.5+ yrs). Next: Project Lead (Levels.fyi India).
Online assessment HackerRank (most reports, India and US). : New grad India (off-campus, Feb 2025): 120 min, 3 coding + 10 technical MCQ + 10 aptitude MCQ, negative marking (-0.5), sections cannot be revisited. MT (Sep 2024 OA, posted May 2025): 3 medium DSA + 10 math/probability MCQs + 10 CS MCQs. SMT/SMTS and senior: 2 problems in 90 min (Jan 2025 senior OA: a hard DP on merging two strings to minimize inversions plus an Asteroid Collision variant). US: 4 medium-hard problems (Oct 2025 report).
Coding rounds 1 screening + 2 to 3 technical + HM (India new grad and MT); 1 to 2 technical (India intern); OA + 2 code pair + design + LLD (one May 2025 SMTS loop); three back-to-back technical interviews or a two-day virtual onsite (US 2025 reports).
Behavioral No named framework. Behavioral questions run inside technical rounds and the HM round; references are checked before the offer.
Timeline Slow and batch-based. India MTS 2025 offer: coding round Sep 2024, onsite rounds Oct 2024, HM Nov 2024, offer Dec 2024 to Jan 2025 ('They interview in batches and shortlist from the pool'). LeetCode posts in Sep 2026 ask how long results take, so delays are normal. US interns: class mostly chosen by early Q1; apply by year end. India campus interviews were reported from Aug to Oct 2025 (one college circular dates on-campus D. E. Shaw interviews Oct 17, 2025, with 16 students shortlisted from the OA). Reference checks before offer. Hybrid work: most staff in office 3 days a week (official FAQ).
New grad pay Official (deshaw.com, Oct 4, 2026): US Software Developer (open to all levels) base $275,000 plus a guaranteed first-year year-end bonus, sign-on and relocation bonus. Software Developer Intern (New York, Summer 2027): $25,000 per month base, $25,000 sign-on, housing or $10,000 allowance. Levels.fyi US (the-d-e-shaw-group, updated Oct 4, 2026): Member Technical median total $322K (base $218K, bonus $104K, no stock); US SWE median $375K. India: Levels.fyi Member Technical median total INR 3.88M (base INR 3.18M); 2025-grad MT offers on LeetCode Discuss: base INR 34L, INR 6L joining + 2L relocation, INR 4L to 6L variable, INR 20L LTI over 4 years, about INR 46L to 47L first-year (May/Jun 2025); Dec 2025 fresher MT offer base INR 30L, about INR 42L first-year. India 6-month SDE intern stipend INR 2L/month (tier-1 IIIT, Aug 2025).
Official links Careers, Students, Official interview prep, Values

Interview process

New grad

  1. Application. Apply on deshaw.com (US) or apply.deshawindia.com (India). Official: 'An actual human will review your application.' You can apply to several roles. India hiring is mostly campus: 'Campus recruitment fuels the majority of our hiring in the Technology and Finance functions' (official). Off-campus India OA for 2025 grads ran Feb 2, 2025.
  2. Online assessment. India (off-campus 2025 grads, Feb 2, 2025): test (platform not named in the post), 120 min, 5 sections: 3 coding problems in 80 min (20, 30, 30 min; first question must be attempted first; no revisiting), 10 technical MCQs (DSA, OS, DBMS, SQL, networks) in 20 min, 10 aptitude MCQs in 20 min; +2 correct, -0.5 wrong. India on-campus 6-month SDE intern OA (Aug 2025): 3 coding problems (two were Codeforces problems), subject MCQs, 15 aptitude MCQs in about 30 min. US: an Aug 2025 report had an HR call, then a coding interview on HackerRank; an Oct 2025 Software Developer report had an OA of 4 LeetCode medium-hard problems.
  3. Phone / screening interview. Official: phone interview first. About 60 min: project discussion plus 1 DSA problem plus CS questions (OOP, OS, DBMS). India new grad 2025: top-10 leaderboard from a stream, then OOP, OS, ACID.
  4. Technical rounds (2 to 3, virtual or on campus). Each about 60 to 90 min: 1 to 2 DSA problems (medium to hard, with follow-ups), CS fundamentals (OS deadlock, DBMS indexing, SQL), language internals (C++ virtual inheritance, memory layout; Java), and LLD with class diagrams (furniture shop, Google Classroom, Stack Overflow). US reports: three back-to-back interviews covering CS fundamentals (DP, sorting), math, and a modified LeetCode problem (Oct 2025); a first round planned as 4 hours and cut to 2, with 2 LeetCode mediums plus OS/DP/databases (Oct 2025); a virtual onsite split over two days with some mathematical/numerical estimation questions (Aug 2025).
  5. Hiring manager round. Resume walkthrough, DBMS (isolation, B-tree vs B+ tree), OS scheduling, a harder DSA problem, behavioral ('A time you handled a critical problem collaboratively', 'Why DE Shaw?') (India MTS, 2025).
  6. References and offer. Official sequence ends with 'conversations with your references, and, finally, an offer'. US Aug 2025 report confirms a reference check stage.

Intern

  1. Application (US). Rolling. Official: firm 'typically completes intern class selection early in Q1' of the internship year; apply by the end of the previous calendar year. Interns in New York, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore.
  2. Interviews (US). Phone interview, then virtual interviews (official). Technical questions span 'probability, mathematical statistics, algorithms, logical thinking, and/or programming' plus behavioral (official guide).
  3. India campus intern: OA. HackerRank: 3 coding problems + subject MCQs + aptitude MCQs (tier-1 IIIT, 6-month intern, Aug 2025; about 30 students shortlisted). A Hyderabad intern report (Jul 2025) mentions a 3-question HackerRank OA without describing MCQs.
  4. India campus intern: interviews. 1 to 2 in-person rounds, about 90 min each, mixing DSA (Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) with duplicates follow-up; 2D array plus priority queue), OOP (abstract classes, polymorphism), OS (deadlock), DBMS (indexing), SQL, and a small design task (database table as a Java class with primary key and auto increment).

With 1 to 3 years of experience

SMT/SMTS (about 2 to 5 yrs, mostly India reports): HackerRank OA with 2 problems in 90 min (DP-heavy, medium to hard; one Mar 2026 candidate scored 15/15 and 13/15 and cleared the OA and screening). Screening: project discussion, 1 DSA (for example Maximum Product Subarray), Python internals (decorators, generators, GIL, async), and a coded LLD (Mar 2026). A Mar 2026 Bangalore SMTS reject had a whole round on Java internals (String pool, StringBuilder vs StringBuffer, pass-by-value, heap vs stack). A May 2025 SMTS loop: OA (Painting the Walls-like + hard combinatorics), 2 code-pair rounds (Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II/III, knapsack DP, multithreading pseudo code), a design round (browser history, then trade message handling, replay and delivery semantics), and an LLD round (chat application with 5+ follow-ups plus a runnable multithreading task); that candidate attributed the reject to quoting comp near the top band (single report). Jan 2025 SMTS screening: binary search task scheduling, verbal flight-booking/payment design, two behavioral questions. US Software Developer posting is open to all levels.

Online assessment

  • Platform: HackerRank (most reports, India and US).
  • Format: New grad India (off-campus, Feb 2025): 120 min, 3 coding + 10 technical MCQ + 10 aptitude MCQ, negative marking (-0.5), sections cannot be revisited. MT (Sep 2024 OA, posted May 2025): 3 medium DSA + 10 math/probability MCQs + 10 CS MCQs. SMT/SMTS and senior: 2 problems in 90 min (Jan 2025 senior OA: a hard DP on merging two strings to minimize inversions plus an Asteroid Collision variant). US: 4 medium-hard problems (Oct 2025 report).
  • Notes: Partial credit matters: candidates advanced with 1 full + 1 partial solution. Expect DP, graphs, binary search, and custom-story problems (packets, courses, servers). Some OA problems match Codeforces problems (1927G, 1861E in Aug 2025).

Prepare with How to pass an OA and compare formats in OA formats by company.

Coding rounds

  • Rounds: 1 screening + 2 to 3 technical + HM (India new grad and MT); 1 to 2 technical (India intern); OA + 2 code pair + design + LLD (one May 2025 SMTS loop); three back-to-back technical interviews or a two-day virtual onsite (US 2025 reports).
  • Style: LeetCode medium to hard with optimization follow-ups ('a very simple DSA question' became hard on the follow-up, May 2025). Mix of classic problems (Binary Tree Cameras, Number of Islands variant, Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II/III) and custom ones (top-10 leaderboard stream, submatrix transpose invariant). You are expected to explain and run test cases.
  • Environment: Virtual rounds use a shared online editor (CoderPad per Techprep, a secondary source). India campus rounds are often in person ('interviews were scheduled offline', Aug 2025). Languages: Python, Java, or C/C++ (intern posting); India rounds often probe C++ or Java internals.
  • Graded on: Official guide: 'what techniques, concepts, or algorithms you use to pursue a solution, and how deeply you understand their uses and limitations', and 'show your work'. Official traits: uphold high standards, analyze rigorously, communicate clearly and concisely, thrive on collaboration, demonstrate intellectual curiosity.
  • Reported focus topics: Dynamic programming (stock problems, knapsack, grid paths, partition), Binary search on the answer, Trees and graphs (BFS/DFS, complete trees, islands), Ordered sets, heaps, and streaming top-K, OS: deadlock conditions, scheduling, threads and mutexes, DBMS: ACID, isolation, indexing, B-tree vs B+ tree, SQL queries, SQL vs NoSQL, OOP and language internals (C++ virtual functions, memory layout; Java; Python GIL), LLD with class diagrams; concurrency in LLD, Math, probability, and aptitude (OA MCQs, US math round)

Run every practice problem through the 45-minute framework and the code quality rubric.

What they ask (data)

Based on 15 distinct problems tagged to D. E. Shaw in the last 6 months (8 in the last 30 days, 10 in the last 3 months, 123 all-time) across two open datasets of LeetCode company tags. Tags are user-reported, so treat frequency as a signal, not a promise.

Difficulty mix (last 6 months): Medium 47%, Hard 40%, Easy 13%

Most tagged topics (share of problems): Array 53%, Heap (Priority Queue) 33%, String 27%, Hash Table 20%, Greedy 20%, Sliding Window 20%, Dynamic Programming 20%, Sorting 13%, Two Pointers 13%, Binary Search 13%

Most frequent problems

Ranked by frequency, weighted toward the last 30 days. Classics like Two Sum sit near the top of almost every company's list because users tag them everywhere. Solve those fast. The signature list below is more specific to this company.

# Problem Difficulty Last seen Topics
1 Reorganize String Medium 30 days Hash Table, String, Greedy, Sorting
2 Count Binary Substrings Easy 30 days Two Pointers, String
3 K-th Symbol in Grammar Medium 30 days Math, Bit Manipulation, Recursion
4 Longest Repeating Character Replacement Medium 30 days Hash Table, String, Sliding Window
5 Sliding Window Maximum Hard 30 days Array, Queue, Sliding Window, Heap (Priority Queue)
6 Count Vowel Substrings of a String Easy 30 days Hash Table, String
7 Minimum Number of Refueling Stops Hard 30 days Array, Dynamic Programming, Greedy, Heap (Priority Queue)
8 Asteroid Collision Medium 30 days Array, Stack, Simulation
9 Max Consecutive Ones III Medium 3 months Array, Binary Search, Sliding Window, Prefix Sum
10 Shortest Path in a Grid with Obstacles Elimination Hard 3 months Array, Breadth-First Search, Matrix
11 Binary Tree Cameras Hard 6 months Dynamic Programming, Tree, Depth-First Search, Binary Tree
12 Furthest Building You Can Reach Medium 6 months Array, Greedy, Heap (Priority Queue)
13 Maximum Product Subarray Medium 6 months Array, Dynamic Programming
14 Median of Two Sorted Arrays Hard 6 months Array, Binary Search, Divide and Conquer
15 Find Median from Data Stream Hard 6 months Two Pointers, Design, Sorting, Heap (Priority Queue)

Signature problems

Problems where D. E. Shaw accounts for a large share of all recent tags across companies. These are the most D. E. Shaw-specific questions in the data.

# Problem Difficulty Last seen Topics
1 Reorganize String Medium 30 days Hash Table, String, Greedy, Sorting
2 K-th Symbol in Grammar Medium 30 days Math, Bit Manipulation, Recursion
3 Count Binary Substrings Easy 30 days Two Pointers, String
4 Minimum Number of Refueling Stops Hard 30 days Array, Dynamic Programming, Greedy, Heap (Priority Queue)
5 Count Vowel Substrings of a String Easy 30 days Hash Table, String
6 Furthest Building You Can Reach Medium 6 months Array, Greedy, Heap (Priority Queue)

Reported in 2025 to 2026 interviews

Questions candidates said they got, each linked to the post where it was reported.

Question Role When Source
Binary Tree Cameras Member Technical (1.5 yrs exp), India (interviews Sep to Nov 2024, offer Dec 2024, posted May 2025) 2025-05 post
Maximize Score of Numbers in Ranges Member Technical, India (interviews Sep to Nov 2024, offer Dec 2024, posted May 2025) 2025-05 post
Lexicographically smallest string after at most k deletions (variant of Remove K Digits) Member Technical, India (interviews Sep to Nov 2024, offer Dec 2024, posted May 2025) 2025-05 post
Count pairs i < j with arr(i) >= 2 * arr(j) (variant of Reverse Pairs) Member Technical, India (interviews Sep to Nov 2024, offer Dec 2024, posted May 2025) 2025-05 post
LLD of Stack Overflow; LLD of Google Classroom (teachers, students, subjects); SQL: first login time per user from a history table Member Technical, India (interviews Sep to Nov 2024, offer Dec 2024, posted May 2025) 2025-05 post
Dashboard showing the top 10 programmers from a stream of {username: problems_solved} updates (ordered multiset vs heap discussion) SDE New Grad, India (offer) 2025-04 post
Can matrix A become matrix B by transposing square k x k submatrices? (compare multisets on each anti-diagonal i + j) SDE New Grad, India (offer) 2025-04 post
LLD: design a furniture shop system with a class diagram; write a C++ program that deadlocks with mutexes; diamond problem and virtual inheritance SDE New Grad, India (offer) 2025-04 post
Insert Delete GetRandom O(1), follow-up: allow duplicates SDE Intern (6-month, on-campus), India 2025-08 post
Design a database table as a Java class: set data types, primary key, auto increment SDE Intern (6-month, on-campus), India 2025-08 post
Number of Islands with modifications, in a loop of three back-to-back interviews (CS fundamentals on DP and sorting, math, then this problem) SWE (location not stated; US-style loop with a math round) 2025-10 post
How do you think a breakpoint works? (round on OS, DP, databases) Software Developer, US 2025-10 post
Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II and III (explain and run cases) SMTS (3+ yrs), India 2025-05 post
Design browser history (about 40 min in the design round, so likely discussed as design rather than coded), then design handling, replay and delivery semantics for trade messages SMTS (3+ yrs), India 2025-05 post
OA problem similar to Painting the Walls; LLD chat application with multithreading coding SMTS (3+ yrs), India 2025-05 post
Assign tasks in order to n servers as contiguous blocks to minimize total time (binary search on answer, same idea as Split Array Largest Sum) SMTS (3.5 yrs, tier-1 college, 'Top MNC'; location not stated), screening round 2025-01 post
Maximum Product Subarray; Python decorators, generators, GIL, async; LLD to merge data from multiple sources with a primary source SMT (location not stated), screening round 2026-03 post
Find a node in a level-order-sorted complete binary tree using binary search on the tree (like Count Complete Tree Nodes) SMTS (2.1 yrs), Bangalore 2026-03 post
OA: return top K packet IDs sorted by the largest gap between consecutive set bits (related to Binary Gap) Off-campus 2025 grads, India 2025-02 post
OA: count right/down paths in a grid avoiding cells within a Manhattan latency threshold of breach cells, mod 1e9+7 (harder Unique Paths II) Off-campus 2025 grads, India 2025-02 post
Senior OA (HackerRank, 90 min): variation of Asteroid Collision; plus a hard DP to merge two strings so the result has minimum inversions Senior Engineer OA (location not stated) 2025-01 post

Beyond LeetCode

CS fundamentals rounds (OS deadlock and scheduling, DBMS isolation and indexing, SQL queries, networks), language internals (C++ memory layout, diamond problem, macros; Java method hiding, String pool; Python GIL), math/logic and probability rounds (US), aptitude MCQs in India OAs, LLD with class diagrams, and case studies: official process may include 'a writing sample or code sample' and 'a case study'; an Apr 2025 NY report describes a 48-hour take-home case study (the candidate modeled AI work at an insurance company).

System design

LLD appears even for new grads and interns: class design plus class diagram (furniture shop, Google Classroom, Stack Overflow, chat app), OOP principles, sometimes concurrency. HLD shows up for SMTS and experienced hires (flight booking components, payment gateway, browser history, trade message replay/delivery). US loops may include system design inside the onsite.

Start with who needs system design, then the framework.

Behavioral

Framework: No named framework. Behavioral questions run inside technical rounds and the HM round; references are checked before the offer. (official page)

What they look for:

  • Uphold high standards (official interviewing page)
  • Analyze rigorously (official)
  • Communicate clearly and concisely (official)
  • Thrive on collaboration and explain your individual contribution to team projects (official guide)
  • Demonstrate intellectual curiosity (official)
  • Ethics: 'an inviolable policy of maintaining the highest ethical and legal standards' (official Our People page)

Questions to prepare:

  • Walk me through a technical decision you have made in the past. (US SWE, Aug 2025)
  • Why DE Shaw? (India MTS HM round, 2025)
  • Describe a time you handled a critical problem collaboratively. (India MTS, 2025)
  • Describe a typical day at work. (India MTS, 2025)
  • Tell me about a time you were stuck and didn't know how to proceed. (India SMTS, Jan 2025)
  • How do you deal with a teammate who is slacking? (India SMTS, Jan 2025)
  • What challenges did you face in your internship and how did you collaborate with your team? (India new grad, Apr 2025)
  • Can you tell me more about your ML experience? (US SWE, Apr 2025)

Build your answers with the story bank. Company detail: behavioral guide.

Tips

  • Prepare CS fundamentals as seriously as DSA. Most 2025 to 2026 India reports include OS, DBMS, SQL, OOP, or language-internals questions in the same round as coding.
  • In India OAs, attempt the first coding question before moving on, budget 20 to 30 min per problem, and skip MCQs you are unsure about (-0.5 for wrong answers, sections cannot be revisited).
  • Partial solutions count. Candidates reached interviews with one full and one partial OA solution, so bank passing test cases early.
  • Practice 4 LLD problems with class diagrams on paper: furniture shop, Google Classroom, Stack Overflow, chat app (add multithreading).
  • Know the internals of the language on your resume. SMTS candidates were rejected on Java String pool and pass-by-value questions; others got C++ diamond problem and memory layout questions.
  • For US roles, prepare a math and probability round. The official guide lists 'probability, mathematical statistics, algorithms, logical thinking, and/or programming'.
  • Apply early. US intern classes are mostly set by early Q1; the firm recommends applying by the end of the previous calendar year. Expect slow, batch-based decisions.
  • International students: the official FAQ says that if they hire someone who needs work authorization, they will work with that person to apply for it.

4-week plan for D. E. Shaw

Do this after you finish a core list like Grind 75 or NeetCode 150.

  • Week 1: Solve problems 1 to 20 from the most frequent list. Time-box each at 30 minutes.
  • Week 2: Solve problems 21 to 40. Re-solve any you failed in week 1 without looking.
  • Week 3: Solve the signature problems and every reported question above. Do 2 timed mock interviews.
  • Week 4: Write 8 stories for the No named framework. Behavioral questions run inside technical rounds and the HM round; references are checked before the offer. round. Do 2 full mock loops. Review the online assessment and system design notes above.

Sources

Watch out: Fact-checked 2026-10-04: every URL re-fetched (deshaw.com and deshawindia.com pages return the same single-page app HTML, which contains each section's text; LeetCode posts and problem slugs read through LeetCode's GraphQL API because leetcode.com returns 403 to scripts; Taro pages from server-rendered HTML; CBIT circular PDF read directly). Corrections made: removed an unsupported claim that one US 2025 OA ran on LeetCode's platform; the Aug 2025 US report describes a HackerRank coding interview after an HR call, not an OA; the '3 coding + subject MCQ + 15 aptitude MCQ' on-campus OA is from a 6-month intern drive, not new grad; the 6-month India internship comes from a LeetCode report, not deshawindia.com; the Oct 11, 2025 Taro report (Number of Islands) does not state a location; several SMTS/SMT LeetCode posts do not state India explicitly; the May 2025 SMTS loop had no HM round; writing/code samples and case studies are part of the general official process, not only for non-technical roles. Most detailed 2025 to 2026 reports are from D. E. Shaw India (Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Gurugram), which differs from New York: US loops add a math/logic round and lean less on India-style aptitude MCQs. US question data is thin. 'Member Technical' vs 'Software Developer' titles differ by office. Levels.fyi US base ($218K) is below the current posted $275K base, likely older submissions. Techprep (aggregator) claims about 8% pass rate and 5 to 7 onsite rounds; treat as secondary. No first/second-year fellowship appears on the official site as of Oct 2026. The Mar 2026 Bangalore SMTS post uses the same template as a Jane Street post from the same week; treat as a single anecdote. Jugal's Substack has no D. E. Shaw-specific post.

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