
D.E. Shaw Quantitative Interview Questions with Sample Problems
Quantitative interviews at D.E. Shaw often involve complex probability puzzles and expectation problems, reflecting real-world scenarios a quant researcher might face. In this article, we’ll explore and solve three classic D.E. Shaw quant interview questions about rolling dice, providing detailed explanations, solutions, and the mathematical concepts involved.
Given a fair 6-sided die, what is the expected number of rolls needed until you roll a 6 for the first time?
This is a classic example of the “expected value of a geometric random variable”. We're looking for the expected number of independent trials (die rolls) needed to get the first success (rolling a 6).