DE Shaw vs Okta Interview Questions
DE Shaw lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while Okta lists 20. They share 6 problems — 6% of DE Shaw's bank and 30% of Okta's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 99 DE Shaw-only and 14 Okta-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 6 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both DE Shaw and Okta.
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 Okta-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
6 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both DE Shaw and Okta.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) | Medium |
| Longest Consecutive Sequence | Medium |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Median of Two Sorted Arrays | Hard |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Container With Most Water | Medium |
Unique to DE Shaw (99)
Problems in DE Shaw's list that do not appear at Okta.
Unique to Okta (14)
Problems in Okta's list that do not appear at DE Shaw.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Simple Bank System | Medium |
| All Nodes Distance K in Binary Tree | Medium |
| Group Anagrams | Medium |
| Find Median from Data Stream | Hard |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| Daily Temperatures | Medium |
| Task Scheduler | Medium |
| Making File Names Unique | Medium |
| Range Sum Query 2D - Immutable | Medium |
| Reverse Substrings Between Each Pair of Parentheses | Medium |
| Word Ladder II | Hard |
| Word Ladder | Hard |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do DE Shaw and Okta share?
DE Shaw and Okta share 6 LeetCode interview questions. 99 problems appear only in DE Shaw's list and 14 appear only in Okta's list.
What topics overlap most between DE Shaw and Okta?
The most common shared topics between DE Shaw and Okta are Array (5 shared questions), Hash Table (3 shared questions), Design (2 shared questions), Union-Find (2 shared questions), Math (1 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: DE Shaw or Okta?
DE Shaw has 11 Easy, 64 Medium, and 30 Hard questions. Okta has 0 Easy, 15 Medium, and 5 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 Okta?
Start with the 6 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 DE Shaw-specific and 14 Okta-specific questions to round out your prep.