Did the full D.E. Shaw SWE loop earlier this year for a senior IC role in their systematic trading group. Going to be specific because the posts I found when preparing were frustratingly vague.
Timeline: recruiter outreach on LinkedIn, took about 10 days to schedule the first call. Total process from first contact to offer was about 6 weeks, which felt fast for them given what others had said.
What the loop looks like
For me it was: recruiter screen, one online assessment (OA), two technical phone screens, then an onsite (virtual) with four rounds. Some people get five rounds on the onsite, seems role-dependent.
The two phone screens were both coding-heavy. Not system design at this stage. Think Leetcode medium to hard: graphs, dynamic programming, string manipulation with constraints. Both interviewers were working engineers, not recruiters. They asked a few follow-up probing questions after I coded, mostly about complexity and edge cases.
Onsite structure: Two more coding rounds (one felt like a live OA repeat, one was more open-ended) One system design (distributed systems focus for my role) One behavioral / culture round
Each round was 45-55 minutes. No panel. You get a separate interviewer for each.
What they care about
This is not a place that tolerates sloppy code. They want clean, readable solutions first, then you optimize. I got dinged in feedback for starting with an over-engineered approach before confirming we needed it. They want you to think out loud and confirm understanding before writing a single line.
Comp offer I got was market-rate for a senior engineer in NYC but structured differently (base heavier, bonus structure tied to fund performance rather than RSU grants). Not FAANG RSU money on paper but I'm told the actual cash realization is competitive when the fund does well.
Happy to answer specifics in the comments.