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Deshaw

Large Enterprises

D. E. Shaw & Co. is a global investment and technology development firm founded in 1988, known for pioneering quantitative and computational approaches to trading. It manages tens of billions of dollars in investment capital and is recognized for blending sophisticated mathematical models with technology across financial markets.

4 interview notes · updated Jul 2026

Deshaw·Machine Learning Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Two coding problems for a Machine Learning Engineer role at Deshaw. Nothing ML-specific, just pure algorithms. The problems themselves weren't brutal but the in-place constraint on the second one made me second-guess myself more than I'd like to admit.
  • Implement a square root function from scratch, without using any math library functions. It should handle edge cases like zero and very large or very small inputs, and stay within a specified precision bound.
  • Rearrange an integer array in-place so that all elements at even positions (1-based) are strictly less than all elements at odd positions. Only O(1) extra space allowed.

“Binary search approach felt natural here.”

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Deshaw·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Got a product engineering interview at Deshaw that went pretty deep into AI infrastructure tradeoffs. One meaty discussion question, no coding, just a long conversation about how you'd actually build and operate an LLM-powered product at scale.
  • When building a product powered by an AI language model, how do you decide between using a high-cost, low-latency frontier model versus a cheaper, slower model? Walk through the factors you'd weigh and how you might combine both approaches.

“This one took me a second to get my footing on.”

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Deshaw·Software Engineer·Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership

Jun 2026
Interviewed for a Product Engineer role at Deshaw. Just one behavioral question about user interaction, which felt deceptively simple but had more depth to it than I expected going in.
  • Have you worked directly with end users or customers? Walk through a specific project where you gathered requirements or handled feedback, what your role was, what made it hard, and how user input actually shaped the final work.

“I had a solid example but I kind of buried the lead.”

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Deshaw·Software Engineer·Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership

Jun 2026
Behavioral round at Deshaw for a Product Engineer role. Just the one question but they really sat with my answer, asked a bunch of follow-ups I wasn't expecting.
  • Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker, manager, or stakeholder. What was it about, how did you handle the conversation, and what came out of it?

“I had a decent story ready but stumbled when they pushed on how I actually approached the other person, like the specific conversation not just the outcome.”

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