TL;DR
Expected Height of a Skip List: A canonical quantitative trading interview question at olympiad difficulty. Commonly asked at Jane Street, HRT, Jump Trading.
By Valenke Exam Prep Team·Last updated 2026-06-01
olympiadRandomized Data Structures
Expected Height of a Skip List
Asked at: Jane Street, HRT, Jump Trading
Problem
In a skip list with elements, each element is promoted to the next level independently with probability . What is the expected height (maximum level) of the skip list? Prove that the expected search time is O ( log n ) O(\log n) .
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