DE Shaw vs NVIDIA Interview Questions
DE Shaw lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while NVIDIA lists 136. They share 21 problems — 20% of DE Shaw's bank and 15% of NVIDIA's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 84 DE Shaw-only and 115 NVIDIA-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 21 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both DE Shaw and NVIDIA.
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 NVIDIA-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
21 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both DE Shaw and NVIDIA.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| House Robber | Medium |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) | Medium |
| Sliding Window Maximum | Hard |
| Koko Eating Bananas | Medium |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Maximum Product Subarray | Medium |
| Longest Consecutive Sequence | Medium |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Asteroid Collision | Medium |
| Median of Two Sorted Arrays | Hard |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Unique Paths | Medium |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Minimum Size Subarray Sum | Medium |
| Container With Most Water | Medium |
| Merge Sorted Array | Easy |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| 4Sum | Medium |
Unique to DE Shaw (84)
Problems in DE Shaw's list that do not appear at NVIDIA.
Unique to NVIDIA (115)
Problems in NVIDIA's list that do not appear at DE Shaw.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Special Binary String | Hard |
| Merge k Sorted Lists | Hard |
| Group Anagrams | Medium |
| Minimum Operations to Reduce an Integer to 0 | Medium |
| Last Stone Weight | Easy |
| Maximum Subarray | Medium |
| Maximize Greatness of an Array | Medium |
| Maximum Number of Visible Points | Hard |
| Restore IP Addresses | Medium |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Fizz Buzz | Easy |
| Reverse Bits | Easy |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do DE Shaw and NVIDIA share?
DE Shaw and NVIDIA share 21 LeetCode interview questions. 84 problems appear only in DE Shaw's list and 115 appear only in NVIDIA's list.
What topics overlap most between DE Shaw and NVIDIA?
The most common shared topics between DE Shaw and NVIDIA are Array (17 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (5 shared questions), Hash Table (5 shared questions), Two Pointers (4 shared questions), Stack (3 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: DE Shaw or NVIDIA?
DE Shaw has 11 Easy, 64 Medium, and 30 Hard questions. NVIDIA has 32 Easy, 89 Medium, and 15 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 NVIDIA?
Start with the 21 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 DE Shaw-specific and 20 NVIDIA-specific questions to round out your prep.