Two Opaque Boxes: Place or Take for Maximum Expected Payoff
Company: Jane Street
Role: Data Scientist
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Onsite
Company: Jane Street
Role: Data Scientist
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Onsite
You are playing a one-player game with two opaque boxes, both of which start empty. The game lasts exactly 100 turns, and on every turn you must choose one of the following two actions:
The boxes are opaque: you can never see how much money is in either box, and you do not learn how much money you have collected until the game is over. In other words, you receive no feedback during the game, so your decisions cannot depend on any observed outcomes.
Assuming optimal play, what is the expected total payoff of this game? Describe the optimal strategy (which turns should be Place and which should be Take, and in what order) and compute the exact expected value it achieves.