DE Shaw vs Lyft Interview Questions
DE Shaw lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while Lyft lists 26. They share 5 problems — 5% of DE Shaw's bank and 19% of Lyft's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 100 DE Shaw-only and 21 Lyft-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 5 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both DE Shaw and Lyft.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add DE Shaw-specific problems like Binary Tree Cameras, Find Minimum Cost to Remove Array Elements, Maximum Number of Subsequences After One Inserting and Lyft-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
5 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both DE Shaw and Lyft.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Longest Consecutive Sequence | Medium |
| Asteroid Collision | Medium |
| Decode Ways | Medium |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
Unique to DE Shaw (100)
Problems in DE Shaw's list that do not appear at Lyft.
Unique to Lyft (21)
Problems in Lyft's list that do not appear at DE Shaw.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Time Based Key-Value Store | Medium |
| Read N Characters Given read4 II - Call Multiple Times | Hard |
| Minimum Window Substring | Hard |
| Max Stack | Hard |
| Convert Sorted List to Binary Search Tree | Medium |
| Check Completeness of a Binary Tree | Medium |
| Car Pooling | Medium |
| String Compression | Medium |
| Smallest Range Covering Elements from K Lists | Hard |
| Range Sum Query 2D - Immutable | Medium |
| Min Stack | Medium |
| Word Ladder II | Hard |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do DE Shaw and Lyft share?
DE Shaw and Lyft share 5 LeetCode interview questions. 100 problems appear only in DE Shaw's list and 21 appear only in Lyft's list.
What topics overlap most between DE Shaw and Lyft?
The most common shared topics between DE Shaw and Lyft are Array (3 shared questions), Hash Table (2 shared questions), String (2 shared questions), Breadth-First Search (1 shared questions), Matrix (1 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: DE Shaw or Lyft?
DE Shaw has 11 Easy, 64 Medium, and 30 Hard questions. Lyft has 0 Easy, 19 Medium, and 7 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 Lyft?
Start with the 5 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 DE Shaw-specific and 20 Lyft-specific questions to round out your prep.