DE Shaw vs Meta Interview Questions
DE Shaw lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while Meta lists 217. They share 28 problems — 27% of DE Shaw's bank and 13% of Meta's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 77 DE Shaw-only and 189 Meta-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 28 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both DE Shaw and Meta.
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 Meta-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
28 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both DE Shaw and Meta.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Letter Combinations of a Phone Number | Medium |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| House Robber | Medium |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Majority Element | Easy |
| Koko Eating Bananas | Medium |
| Longest Consecutive Sequence | Medium |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Median of Two Sorted Arrays | Hard |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Search a 2D Matrix | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II | Medium |
| Basic Calculator II | Medium |
| Unique Paths | Medium |
| Decode Ways | Medium |
| Text Justification | Hard |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array | Medium |
| Word Search II | Hard |
| Longest Valid Parentheses | Hard |
| Minimum Size Subarray Sum | Medium |
| Wildcard Matching | Hard |
| Container With Most Water | Medium |
| Merge Sorted Array | Easy |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| 4Sum | Medium |
| Next Permutation | Medium |
Unique to DE Shaw (77)
Problems in DE Shaw's list that do not appear at Meta.
Unique to Meta (189)
Problems in Meta's list that do not appear at DE Shaw.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses | Medium |
| Valid Word Abbreviation | Easy |
| Binary Tree Vertical Order Traversal | Medium |
| Valid Palindrome II | Easy |
| Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree III | Medium |
| Kth Largest Element in an Array | Medium |
| Pow(x, n) | Medium |
| Binary Tree Right Side View | Medium |
| Simplify Path | Medium |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree | Medium |
| Find Peak Element | Medium |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do DE Shaw and Meta share?
DE Shaw and Meta share 28 LeetCode interview questions. 77 problems appear only in DE Shaw's list and 189 appear only in Meta's list.
What topics overlap most between DE Shaw and Meta?
The most common shared topics between DE Shaw and Meta are Array (19 shared questions), String (9 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (8 shared questions), Hash Table (6 shared questions), Two Pointers (5 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: DE Shaw or Meta?
DE Shaw has 11 Easy, 64 Medium, and 30 Hard questions. Meta has 52 Easy, 132 Medium, and 33 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 Meta?
Start with the 28 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 DE Shaw-specific and 20 Meta-specific questions to round out your prep.