DE Shaw vs Twitter Interview Questions
DE Shaw lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while Twitter lists 53. They share 7 problems — 7% of DE Shaw's bank and 13% of Twitter's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 98 DE Shaw-only and 46 Twitter-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 7 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both DE Shaw and Twitter.
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 Twitter-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
7 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both DE Shaw and Twitter.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) | Medium |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Flatten Nested List Iterator | Medium |
| Wildcard Matching | Hard |
Unique to DE Shaw (98)
Problems in DE Shaw's list that do not appear at Twitter.
Unique to Twitter (46)
Problems in Twitter's list that do not appear at DE Shaw.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Regular Expression Matching | Hard |
| Integer to Roman | Medium |
| Merge k Sorted Lists | Hard |
| Multiply Strings | Medium |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| Permutation Sequence | Hard |
| Pascal's Triangle | Easy |
| Word Break II | Hard |
| Time Needed to Buy Tickets | Easy |
| Max Points on a Line | Hard |
| One Edit Distance | Medium |
| Happy Number | Easy |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do DE Shaw and Twitter share?
DE Shaw and Twitter share 7 LeetCode interview questions. 98 problems appear only in DE Shaw's list and 46 appear only in Twitter's list.
What topics overlap most between DE Shaw and Twitter?
The most common shared topics between DE Shaw and Twitter are Array (3 shared questions), Stack (3 shared questions), Design (3 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (2 shared questions), String (2 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: DE Shaw or Twitter?
DE Shaw has 11 Easy, 64 Medium, and 30 Hard questions. Twitter has 8 Easy, 33 Medium, and 12 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 Twitter?
Start with the 7 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 DE Shaw-specific and 20 Twitter-specific questions to round out your prep.