Visa Software Engineer candidates report a timed online assessment, easy-to-medium coding interviews, resume and core-CS questions, and a hiring manager or behavioral round. Rounds and order vary by team.
$125K
Avg. Base Comp
$148K
Avg. Total Comp
3-4 rounds
Typical Rounds
Not reported
Process Length
Candidates describe the Visa Software Engineer process as a timed online assessment followed by live rounds that mix coding with resume-based discussion. Several report a 70-minute assessment with four LeetCode-style questions, while another describes a CodeSignal-style test with four questions in about 60 to 75 minutes. Difficulty is usually called easy to medium, though one candidate found the four-question set uneven, with one brute-force hard problem.
The live coding is mostly standard: linked lists, longest substring without repeating characters, Number of Islands, graphs, trees and sliding windows. Don't stop at algorithms, though. Candidates also report questions on OOP, REST, testing, design patterns, operating systems, TCP and UDP, SQL and DBMS, and Java specifics such as ExecutorService.
Resume depth matters. One candidate says an earlier project submission was probed technology by technology, including databases, caching, OAuth, JWT, Kafka, Kubernetes and AWS, so be ready to defend every tool you list. Another was asked to explain an API call from a project.
System design appears in some loops but looks conversational. Reported prompts include setting up an example website with scaling considerations and a file processor design. Behavioral questions include why Visa, teamwork and favorite projects, and negative feedback from a manager. Outcomes in this set are mixed, with both offers and rejections, and one rejected candidate was not given a reason. Timing is also uneven: one candidate describes a process of a few months, and another received a decision in about a week.
Synthesized from 55 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Visa process.
Still ongoing, 3 rounds. I actually didn't expect a SQL question to show up since the agenda just said coding and DSA, so I struggled a bit on that because I never really write SQL queries; I'm used to just reading them.
Questions asked: They asked me to introduce myself and go through my resume. They asked about the projects I worked on and wanted me to go in depth technically. The SQL question asked to query employees and their UIN and return null if it's not present.
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Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Visa
Write a query to return the two students with the closest test scores and the score difference
| Question | |
|---|---|
| Employee Salaries | |
| Top Three Salaries | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| Total Spent on Products | |
| Sum to N | |
| Bagging vs Boosting | |
| Size of Joins | |
| Alphabet Sum | |
| Employees Before Managers | |
| Resumable Fact Table Load | |
| Hurdles In Data Projects | |
| Production Model Monitoring | |
| Fewer Orders | |
| Count Transactions | |
| RAG Strict Source Control | |
| Implementing the Fibonacci Sequence in Three Different Methods | |
| Concurrent LLM Serving | |
| Modifying a Billion Rows | |
| Slow SQL Query | |
| Swap Variables | |
| Filling Supermarket Bag | |
| User Event Data Pipeline | |
| Mouse Search | |
| Check Matching Parentheses | |
| The Longest Journey | |
| Search Timeout | |
| Solo ML Deployment | |
| Three Indexes Adding Zero | |
| SageMaker Deployment Architecture |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Some candidates report a short recruiter call or phone screen before the assessment. It typically covers your background, why you want Visa and sometimes team fit or expected salary. Not everyone describes this step, so it may vary by team.
Candidates report a timed online coding test, described as HackerRank or CodeSignal-style. Reported formats include four questions in 70 minutes and four questions in about 60 to 75 minutes. Questions are usually easy to medium, with occasional harder items. Practice pacing under a clock.
Candidates report one or more live coding rounds of roughly 30-50 minutes. Reported problems include linked lists, longest substring without repeats, graphs, Number of Islands, trees and sliding windows. Some rounds open with behavioral questions before the coding problem.
Several candidates describe a round on projects and fundamentals. Topics reported include explaining an API call, OS and networking basics, OOP, REST, testing, SQL or DBMS, and Java follow-ups. Some also describe a conversational system design prompt. Expect questions on any technology you list on your resume.
Candidates typically describe a final conversation with a hiring manager or HR focused on background, teamwork and why Visa. Some mention a short technical or design discussion if time allows. Have concrete STAR-style stories ready, since decisions were reported as offers and rejections.
