Apple vs ByteDance Interview Questions
Apple lists 300 LeetCode interview questions while ByteDance lists 64. They share 40 problems — 13% of Apple's bank and 63% of ByteDance's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 260 Apple-only and 24 ByteDance-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 40 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both Apple and ByteDance.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add Apple-specific problems like Design Hit Counter, Longest Common Prefix, Rotate Array and ByteDance-specific problems from the exclusive lists below.
Step 3 — Difficulty tuning: Apple skews harder in our data. Budget extra time for Hard problems if you are targeting that company.
Difficulty Comparison
Top Shared Topics
40 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both Apple and ByteDance.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Course Schedule | Medium |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Kth Largest Element in an Array | Medium |
| Maximum Subarray | Medium |
| Merge k Sorted Lists | Hard |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Subarray Sum Equals K | Medium |
| Word Ladder | Hard |
| Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) | Medium |
| Basic Calculator II | Medium |
| Climbing Stairs | Easy |
| Regular Expression Matching | Hard |
| Maximal Square | Medium |
| Longest Palindromic Substring | Medium |
| Decode String | Medium |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Text Justification | Hard |
| Jump Game | Medium |
| Sliding Window Maximum | Hard |
| Add Two Numbers | Medium |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Design Memory Allocator | Medium |
| Combination Sum | Medium |
Showing top 30 of 40 shared problems.
Unique to Apple (260)
Problems in Apple's list that do not appear at ByteDance.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Design Hit Counter | Medium |
| Longest Common Prefix | Easy |
| Rotate Array | Medium |
| Reverse Linked List | Easy |
| Valid Sudoku | Medium |
| Group Anagrams | Medium |
| Course Schedule II | Medium |
| Product of Array Except Self | Medium |
| Valid Palindrome | Easy |
| Rotate Image | Medium |
| Reverse Words in a String | Medium |
| Spiral Matrix | Medium |
Unique to ByteDance (24)
Problems in ByteDance's list that do not appear at Apple.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Remove Duplicate Letters | Medium |
| Smallest Subsequence of Distinct Characters | Medium |
| First Day Where You Have Been in All the Rooms | Medium |
| Shortest Bridge | Medium |
| Longest Increasing Subsequence | Medium |
| Combination Sum II | Medium |
| Maximum Width of Binary Tree | Medium |
| Multiply Strings | Medium |
| Restore IP Addresses | Medium |
| Accounts Merge | Medium |
| Delete Node in a BST | Medium |
| Single Element in a Sorted Array | Medium |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do Apple and ByteDance share?
Apple and ByteDance share 40 LeetCode interview questions. 260 problems appear only in Apple's list and 24 appear only in ByteDance's list.
What topics overlap most between Apple and ByteDance?
The most common shared topics between Apple and ByteDance are Array (18 shared questions), Hash Table (8 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (8 shared questions), String (8 shared questions), Breadth-First Search (4 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: Apple or ByteDance?
Apple has 76 Easy, 178 Medium, and 46 Hard questions. ByteDance has 4 Easy, 51 Medium, and 9 Hard questions. Apple has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both Apple and ByteDance?
Start with the 40 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 Apple-specific and 20 ByteDance-specific questions to round out your prep.