DE Shaw Interview Experience for Internship (On-Campus)
Interview Experience
This is my interview experience for DE Shaw India. They visited our campus for the 2020-2021 session. The whole interview process is done virtually due to COVID-19.Round 1...
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This is my interview experience for DE Shaw India. They visited our campus for the 2020-2021 session. The whole interview process is done virtually due to COVID-19. Round 1 It's an online coding round with some general aptitude and technical questions and 2 coding questions. The duration of this round is of 95 minutes. Both the questions are from dp. The coding questions are: 1. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/find-maximum-possible-stolen-value-houses/ 2. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/minimum-positive-points-to-reach-destination/ Those students who can solve any one of the above questions are selected for the
next round. Out of 150 students, only 20 students are selected for the second round. Round 2 It's a technical interview round. Two interviewers are taking the interview. It's started by asking the first question of keypad encryption, given a string s we have to print the number we press corresponding to the word https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/problems/keypad-typing0119/1 . The second question is given an array of integers generate the maximum possible number by concatenating them https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/given-an-array-of-numbers-arrange-the-numbers-to-form-the-biggest-number/ They asked some gfg puzzles. The third question is of word break https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/word-break-problem-using-backtracking/ . I am unable to find an approach to this question. There are two more rounds but I am not selected for those rounds. Hope this interview experience helps you.
About This Question
This is a candidate experience report from a d.e. shaw interview for a swe role (intern level) during the phone screen round reported in 2025.
It covers the following topics: Strings, Dynamic Programming, Arrays, Recursion, Backtracking .
More D.E. Shaw Interview Questions
About D.E. Shaw Interview Reports
This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at D.E. Shaw. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at D.E. Shaw are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the D.E. Shaw interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in D.E. Shaw reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your D.E. Shaw Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in D.E. Shaw reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.