DE Shaw vs eBay Interview Questions
DE Shaw lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while eBay lists 62. They share 10 problems — 10% of DE Shaw's bank and 16% of eBay's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 95 DE Shaw-only and 52 eBay-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 10 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both DE Shaw and eBay.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add DE Shaw-specific problems like Find Minimum Cost to Remove Array Elements, Maximum Number of Subsequences After One Inserting, Minimum Size Subarray in Infinite Array and eBay-specific problems from the exclusive lists below.
Step 3 — Difficulty tuning: DE Shaw skews harder in our data. Budget extra time for Hard problems if you are targeting that company.
Difficulty Comparison
Top Shared Topics
10 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both DE Shaw and eBay.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Binary Tree Cameras | Hard |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Reorganize String | Medium |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Open the Lock | Medium |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II | Medium |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Two Sum | Easy |
Unique to DE Shaw (95)
Problems in DE Shaw's list that do not appear at eBay.
Unique to eBay (52)
Problems in eBay's list that do not appear at DE Shaw.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Remove One Element to Make the Array Strictly Increasing | Easy |
| Alternating Digit Sum | Easy |
| Partition Equal Subset Sum | Medium |
| Binary Gap | Easy |
| Minimize Maximum Pair Sum in Array | Medium |
| Minimum Window Subsequence | Hard |
| Design Skiplist | Hard |
| Subtree of Another Tree | Easy |
| Spiral Matrix | Medium |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Word Ladder | Hard |
| Pow(x, n) | Medium |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do DE Shaw and eBay share?
DE Shaw and eBay share 10 LeetCode interview questions. 95 problems appear only in DE Shaw's list and 52 appear only in eBay's list.
What topics overlap most between DE Shaw and eBay?
The most common shared topics between DE Shaw and eBay are Hash Table (5 shared questions), Array (5 shared questions), String (4 shared questions), Breadth-First Search (3 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (2 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: DE Shaw or eBay?
DE Shaw has 11 Easy, 64 Medium, and 30 Hard questions. eBay has 10 Easy, 39 Medium, and 13 Hard questions. DE Shaw has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both DE Shaw and eBay?
Start with the 10 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 DE Shaw-specific and 20 eBay-specific questions to round out your prep.