Optiver software engineer candidates report long, design-heavy online assessments followed by coding, systems or object-oriented design, and behavioral conversations. Prepare to reason clearly about performance and implementation tradeoffs.
$196K
Avg. Base Comp
$394K
Avg. Total Comp
6 rounds
Typical Rounds
2-4 weeks
Process Length
Optiver software engineer interviews reported here place unusual weight on turning dense requirements into clean, efficient implementations. Several candidates describe a lengthy online assessment that combines coding with logic, games, aptitude questions, or computer-science fundamentals. Coding prompts may resemble object-oriented or low-level design exercises rather than short algorithm questions. One recent assessment asked candidates to manage cells that expire over time and must be removed from racks; fully reading the specification affected the appropriate data-structure choice.
Later interviews can include live coding, object-oriented design, architecture, debugging, and system-design discussions. Reported exercises include designing a queue with a circular buffer, implementing a scheduler, creating shopping or checkout systems, and reasoning about exchange-related systems. Follow-up questions may test complexity, scalability, networking, lower-level representation, or how a design behaves under changing requirements. Long prompts and open-ended design questions make clarification and careful requirement parsing especially important.
Prepare behavioral examples about your background, feedback, disagreements, projects, and motivation for Optiver and software engineering. Practice explaining a recent project in nontechnical language as well as defending its technical design. Candidate paths vary substantially: some ended after the assessment or an early technical interview, while others continued through several coding and design conversations. Focus on readable, reusable code and explain correctness and performance tradeoffs as you work.
Synthesized from 31 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Optiver process.
The process was fairly structured: I started with the online assessment, then had a recruiter interview, followed by a technical interview. After that, there were two more technical rounds focused on coding and design, and the final stage was a behavioral interview with two people—one software engineer and one recruiter.
The online assessment was a proctored HackerRank, so it was worth being comfortable coding under those conditions before starting. In the recruiter and behavioral conversations, I was asked why I wanted to join Optiver and why I had chosen software engineering. The technical portion became progressively more involved, moving from an initial technical screen into separate coding and design interviews. I found the process direct and organized, with a clear mix of technical evaluation and motivation/fit questions.
I ultimately received an offer but declined it. My main advice is to prepare specifically for a proctored HackerRank assessment, then be ready to clearly explain both your interest in Optiver and your motivation for software engineering. Also expect the later technical rounds to cover coding and system or software design rather than only one type of problem.
Prep tip from this candidate
Practice coding in a proctored HackerRank-style setting, and prepare a clear answer for why Optiver and why software engineering. Expect later technical rounds to include both coding and design.
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Sourced from candidate reports and verified by our team.
Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Optiver
Given a list of integers, and an integer N, write a function to find all combinations that sum to the value N.
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| Hurdles In Data Projects | |
| Priority Queue Using Linked List | |
| 85% vs 82% | |
| Slow SQL Query | |
| Optimistic vs Pessimistic Locking | |
| Ticket Reservation Locking | |
| Minimum Days for Scheduling All Meetings | |
| Client Solution Pushback | |
| Index Fund Return | |
| Ranking Metrics | |
| Processing Large CSV | |
| LRU Cache 1 | |
| Reddit-like Notifications | |
| 2nd Highest Salary | |
| Merge Sorted Lists | |
| Employee Salaries | |
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| Closest SAT Scores | |
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
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| Monthly Customer Report | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| Find the Missing Number | |
| Bagging vs Boosting | |
| String Shift | |
| Prime to N | |
| Find the First Non-Repeating Character in a String | |
| Comments Histogram |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report a lengthy online assessment that may mix coding with CS multiple choice, logic or math games, and cognitive tasks. Software prompts have included object-oriented design, low-level order-book operations, and expiry-based data handling; read the full specification before selecting a data structure and articulate why it meets the constraints.
Candidates report an early recruiter or behavioral conversation covering logistics, résumé experience, motivation, and why Optiver or software engineering. Prepare concise project explanations, a specific account of feedback you acted on, and a clear connection between your interests and the role.
Candidates report live coding, object-oriented design, debugging, and system-design discussions. Examples include a circular-buffer queue, LRU cache, order-book behavior, schedulers, and auction or trading-system designs. Expect follow-up questions on correctness, complexity, memory, and how the solution changes under larger-scale constraints.
Some candidates report multiple later technical conversations or an onsite with whiteboarding and system design, while others describe mixed technical-behavioral virtual interviews. Systems topics may include networking, operating systems, cache locality, garbage collection, and concurrency; explain assumptions and tradeoffs as you proceed.
