I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at Jane Street (New York, NY) in Apr 2024
Interview
- Phone screening to see if the role would be a good fit.
- 2 techincal screenings, the most difficult coding problem was in this interview.
- 4 rounds of whole day on-site (they flew me to NYC), 2 implementation heavy coding interviews and 2 system design questions.
Although the questions interviewers ask aren't inherently difficult on the surface (they're not asking you to solve a novel problem during the interview), it feels like the criteria they're using to judge you is more wholistic and stricter than other companies. For most FAANG level companies all you need to do is bash out a working solution to the coding problem without being rude, that isn't enough for Jane Street.
My recruiter was very friendly and responsive, in fact they were among the most friendly and responsive recruiters I've ever worked with.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Coding problems seemed more implementation intense, it seems the interviewers have a strong emphasis on writing clean, understandable code. Communication and collaborating with the interviewer also appears important, solving the problem perfectly doesn't seem to be as important as you might expect.
One of the system design interviews was walking through a system you developed (I believe system design questions are only asked to lateral/experienced applicants).
I was not asked any explicit behavioral questions outside of the typical ones you might expect when retrospecting during the "walk through a system you developed" interview. I am told Jane Street doesn't have behavioral rounds for engineers in general.
It was a very quick and painless process. Recruiter very responsive, kind interviewers. High implementation and difficult problems, so failed onsite after 3 interviews and a Question and Answer Session.
Did not pass the initial coding round. I tried to explain my thought in details to the interviewer but failed to translate my thought into code. So far interviewer is very nice.
I applied online. I interviewed at Jane Street (New York, NY)
Interview
My experience interviewing at Jane Street was definitely challenging, but also surprisingly collaborative. Instead of focusing only on whether I could get the right answer quickly, the interviewers were much more interested in how I approached problems and explained my thinking. I worked through a few coding questions involving data structures and algorithms, and there were also some probability-style questions that tested logical reasoning. The interviewers were clearly very sharp, but they were also approachable and encouraged me to talk through my thought process the entire time. When I got stuck, they would sometimes guide me with small hints so we could keep exploring the problem together. Overall, it felt less like a typical high-pressure interview and more like a thoughtful technical conversation with experienced engineers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
“What is the expected number of coin flips needed to get two heads in a row?”
