ByteDance vs Citadel Interview Questions
ByteDance lists 64 LeetCode interview questions while Citadel lists 101. They share 19 problems — 30% of ByteDance's bank and 19% of Citadel's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 45 ByteDance-only and 82 Citadel-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 19 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both ByteDance and Citadel.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add ByteDance-specific problems like Remove Duplicate Letters, Smallest Subsequence of Distinct Characters, First Day Where You Have Been in All the Rooms and Citadel-specific problems from the exclusive lists below.
Step 3 — Difficulty tuning: Citadel skews harder in our data. Budget extra time for Hard problems if you are targeting that company.
Difficulty Comparison
Top Shared Topics
19 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both ByteDance and Citadel.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Course Schedule | Medium |
| Combination Sum | Medium |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| House Robber | Medium |
| Maximal Square | Medium |
| Regular Expression Matching | Hard |
| Longest Increasing Subsequence | Medium |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Longest Common Subsequence | Medium |
| Basic Calculator | Hard |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) | Medium |
| Climbing Stairs | Easy |
| Merge k Sorted Lists | Hard |
| Binary Tree Zigzag Level Order Traversal | Medium |
| Sliding Window Maximum | Hard |
Unique to ByteDance (45)
Problems in ByteDance's list that do not appear at Citadel.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Remove Duplicate Letters | Medium |
| Smallest Subsequence of Distinct Characters | Medium |
| First Day Where You Have Been in All the Rooms | Medium |
| Basic Calculator II | Medium |
| Shortest Bridge | Medium |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Design Memory Allocator | Medium |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Word Ladder | Hard |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Combination Sum II | Medium |
| Add Two Numbers | Medium |
Unique to Citadel (82)
Problems in Citadel's list that do not appear at ByteDance.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do ByteDance and Citadel share?
ByteDance and Citadel share 19 LeetCode interview questions. 45 problems appear only in ByteDance's list and 82 appear only in Citadel's list.
What topics overlap most between ByteDance and Citadel?
The most common shared topics between ByteDance and Citadel are Array (11 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (8 shared questions), Breadth-First Search (4 shared questions), Matrix (3 shared questions), String (3 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: ByteDance or Citadel?
ByteDance has 4 Easy, 51 Medium, and 9 Hard questions. Citadel has 5 Easy, 60 Medium, and 36 Hard questions. Citadel has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both ByteDance and Citadel?
Start with the 19 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 ByteDance-specific and 20 Citadel-specific questions to round out your prep.