D. E. Shaw Data Scientist Interview Experience — Easy Technical Screen on Portfolio Variance, Rejected After a Long Wait

D. E. Shaw·Data Scientist·Aug 2026
Technical ScreenRejectedeasy

I got rejected after the first round, after a very long wait. I still think it was my resume that got me rejected.

The technical questions were pretty easy.

The interviewer was super young, felt like a new grad, and felt like they had just woken up. Their hair was still pretty messy, and it felt like they were at home. Honestly, the person who referred me also felt like a new grad. I feel like this team still wants to hire new grads from top US undergrad schools.

The questions: there are n assets, each with variance 1 and equal weight 1/n. What is the portfolio variance?

Then, if all the pairwise correlations are ρ > 0, what is the portfolio variance?

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Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
D. E. Shaw
Role
Data Scientist
Rounds
Technical Screen
Outcome
Rejected
Difficulty
easy
Interview date
Aug 2026
Questions from this interview
1 question

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