Programming & DSA Interview Questions
Programming and data-structures-and-algorithms questions test the implementation skills quant-developer and researcher interviews require, from complexity analysis to clean code.
This area covers arrays and hashing, sorting and searching, recursion, dynamic programming, and Big-O complexity analysis - the implementation toolkit quant-developer and researcher roles require.
Quant DSA interviews often have a numerical or probabilistic flavour - simulating a process, or computing a statistic efficiently - so clean code and correct complexity both matter.
58 programming & dsa questions · 32 free to practise now.
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- Additions in a naive moving averageEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Cache misses under LRU evictionEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Counting complement pairsEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Depth of a key in a BSTEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Expected cost of a mixed lookup workloadEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Grouping anagramsEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Guessing a number with high-low hintsEasyBrainteasersProgramming & DSAView →
- Iteration count of a guarded nested loopEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Maximum subarray sumEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Median across two sorted arraysEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Multiplications saved by Horner's methodEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Multiply by a constant with shiftsEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Nodes fixed by a group reversalEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Numbers with exactly two set bitsEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Peak depth times group count of a bracket scanEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Probes in a colliding hash tableEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Recover an XOR of two unknownsEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Smallest array forcing 7 probesEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- The distance-2 layer of a graphEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- The two missing numbersEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Where counting sort places a valueEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- Writes in an in-place dedupEasyProgramming & DSAView →
- A large power, modular orderMediumProgramming & DSAView →
- Balanced parenthesesMediumCombinatoricsProgramming & DSAView →
- Exact comparisons for min and maxMediumProgramming & DSAView →
- How much a control variate helpsMediumFinance & DerivativesProgramming & DSAView →
- Multiplications in fast exponentiationMediumProgramming & DSAView →
- Quicksort's worst case, countedMediumProgramming & DSAView →
- Rebuilding a tower of ten ringsMediumBrainteasersProgramming & DSAView →
- Sampling an exponential from a uniformMediumRandom VariablesProgramming & DSAView →
- Simulate probability pMediumProbabilityProgramming & DSAView →
- When the naive shuffle is biasedMediumProgramming & DSAView →
- Call count of memoized FibonacciMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Climbing stairsMediumCombinatoricsProgramming & DSA Premium
- Common divisors of the squaresMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Count set bitsMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Counting the innermost callsMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Detect a cycle in a linked listMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Euclid's worst-case step countMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Finite-difference stabilityMediumFinance & DerivativesProgramming & DSA Premium
- How explosive is naive Fibonacci?MediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- How many stack outputs?MediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- How often the smallest disk movesMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- In-place array rotationMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Leaves of a degree-3 treeMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Power iterationMediumLinear AlgebraProgramming & DSA Premium
- Quickselect average complexityMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Sift-up swaps in a binary heapMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- The costliest mergeMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- The half-full nodeMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Two eggs, one hundred floorsMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- When to prefer memoization over tabulationMediumProgramming & DSA Premium
- Absorption in naive floating-point summationHardCalculusProgramming & DSA Premium
- Expected comparisons, from first principlesHardProgramming & DSA Premium
- Median of a streamHardStatisticsProgramming & DSA Premium
- Minimum coins where greedy failsHardProgramming & DSA Premium
- Reservoir samplingHardStatisticsProgramming & DSA Premium
- Two Newton iterations for a square rootHardCalculusProgramming & DSA Premium
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Frequently asked questions
- What programming topics do quant interviews test?
- Core data structures (arrays, hash maps, heaps, trees), sorting and searching, recursion and dynamic programming, and Big-O analysis. Quant-developer roles also probe systems and numerical correctness.
- Which languages are expected for quant programming interviews?
- Most firms accept Python or C++; quant-developer roles often lean on C++ for performance, while research roles frequently use Python. Check the specific role's stack.
- How are quant DSA questions different from standard tech interviews?
- They often blend algorithms with probability or numerics - for example, simulate a random process or compute an expectation efficiently - so both clean implementation and quantitative reasoning are graded.