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Jane Street's "maniacal" interview questions are going viral
Electronic trading firm Jane Street is one of the most notoriously difficult places to get into, not least because of its rigorous hiring process. In the wake of its record-breaking year, various people who failed their Jane Street interviews have gone viral for revealing the questions that stumped them.💥Follow us on WhatsApp for news alerts.💥Deedy Das, a partner at VC firm Menlo Ventures, started the trend. In a post that has gathered 8.9m views, Das claimed that Jane Street puts potential interns through a "gauntlet of mental math." He said that he went through six rounds and was stumped by the following question:"What is the next day after today in DD/MM/YYYY where all the digits are unique?"The method is just as important as the answer (if not more) when interviewing at Jane Street. Das claimed that the interviewer offered him a pen and paper to do the calculations, but he "knew that was an instant no." After giving an answer, Das was also asked how sure he was of his answer on a scale of 0-1; the interviewer allegedly laughed when he gave an answer of 0.95. Being overconfident can cost you.Agustin Lebron, a former Jane Street trader, responded to say that he originated the question. He said he "actually stole it from a University Challenge buzz in;" watching the show may now qualify as interview prep.Following Das' tweet, various people revealed their own tribulations interviewing at Jane Street. Alex Song, a former VP at New York fintech Ramp, claimed that he interviewed there in 2010 while working as a trader for Morgan Stanley. He called it the "worst interview of his life," in which he was given the rules for a card game then told he had an hour to figure out a dominant winning strategy.Brian Huang, a former trader at rival firm XTX Markets, said he was asked a "maniacal" question by Jane Street while he was at MIT (from 2014 to 2018). The question, responses claimed, is also used for undergraduate math admissions interviews for Cambridge University:"You are given 30 strings (physical strings, not code strings). By tying ends of the strings together and using all of the strings, what is the expected number of loops created? For example, you can tie both ends of one string together to form a loop. If you did this with all of the strings, 30 loops would be created. You can also tie two strings together to form a bigger loop. If you did that with all the strings you’d have 15 loops. What is the expected number of loops if all of the ends are tied t...
One post about Jane Street's tough interview process turned into a big ...
By Alice Tecotzky You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email. Jane Street has a notoriously difficult interview process for quantitative researchers and traders. hobo_018/Getty Images 2026-05-02T09:41:01.301Z A social media post sparked a string of jokes about Jane Street's notorious interview process. Posts about fake interviews mention orange chicken, cardio machines, and New York City pigeons. The trading firm, which offers recent grads $300,000 base salaries, is known for top talent. The interminable Trader Joe's line. Chess tables in Bryant Park. An Equinox StairMaster. These are just some of the locations social media users are linking to Jane Street in an increasingly absurd string of jokes about the trading firm's notoriously difficult interview process for quantitative researchers and traders. It all started after Deedy Das, a partner at the venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, posted about Jane Street's reported record trading haul and what he said was his own sixth-round interview in 2014."What is the next day after today in DD/MM/YYYY where all the digits are unique?" he recalled being asked in a post on X.After he answered, the interviewer asked him to rate his confidence on a scale of zero to one, Das said. He said he initially answered "0.95," but moments later realized he could flip the digits to get a closer, and ultimately correct, date. The interviewer "chuckled" about Das' confidence rating. "That's when I knew I failed," Das wrote.Jane Street made ~$40B in 2025 with 3,500 employees, a ~2x from the year before.At ~65-70% profit margin, that's $8M profit / employee, the highest for a 1000+ ppl company. High-frequency trading continues to be the most efficient money making engine.I want to share an old… pic.twitter.com/8wsUQmyR0k— Deedy (@deedydas) April 25, 2026 His post, with more than 640 reposts as of Friday morning, spawned a pile-on, with people drafting elaborate, seemingly fictitious tales of their interviews. Jane Street is known as one of Wall Street's most lucrative, selective trading firms. In recent years, it offered some interns a base salary equivalent to $250,000 annually; an open quantitative trader role for recent graduates with "a strong quantitative mind" who enjoy "solving interesting problems" offers a $300,000 base salary.Jane Street's website says the interview process begins with phone conversations and culminates in an in-person interview with a quan...
The hardest company on Wall Street to get into: Jane Street, earning ...
The hardest company on Wall Street to get into: Jane Street, earning $40 billion a year. How absurd are its interview questions?
A Strange Jane Street Interview Story I Came Across - General - Trading Q&A by Zerodha - All your queries on trading and markets answered
Had a Jane Street interview story pop up on Twitter, no idea if it’s real, but it’s too good not to share. Tweet link Had a Jane Street interview in 2013 that still bothers me. It was my 6th round. Final interview. The guy walks in carrying no laptop, no notebook, just a cold brew and what ...
