Balyasny Asset Management Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I interviewed for a C# engineer job on the Risk Technology team. The first part was a call with HR and then a technical chat with the hiring manager. After that, there were 5 more interviews with different team members. These covered C# and .NET in depth, coding, architecture, my past projects, and my understanding of the industries I've worked in. It was pretty tough, but most interviewers were nice. My biggest issue is that after all that, they didn't give me any feedback since I didn't get an offer. They said it was due to a high volume of candidates, which is a weak excuse after making me do seven interviews and prep for them. If there were really that many candidates, they should have spaced out the interviews instead of doing five back-to-back after the initial two, to save everyone's time. It felt disrespectful.

I started with a one-hour HackerRank REST API task, which was pretty easy. Then, I had a chat with HR about my soft skills, background, and why I want to join BAM. After that, two developers from London, one of them a manager, interviewed me. They didn't ask any tough coding questions, surprisingly. The manager asked basic stuff like 'What is Kafka?' and gave unclear system design requirements. It was important to ask lots of clarifying questions, which I did, but he seemed unsure himself and was looking things up on Google. He expected me to have the answers he found, which felt a bit off.

The interview process at Balyasny Asset Management is team-based, so your experience might differ based on the team you're assigned. My process went like this: First, an HR call covering my motivations, past experience, university background, and knowledge of BAM. Then, a technical interview where I had to solve a Leetcode Medium problem, specifically a variation of 'Buy and Sell Stock'. After that, a behavioral interview with a director on my allocated team, focusing mostly on my motivations and a deep dive into my resume. Finally, an HR Offer Call. The whole thing was super fast, under two weeks, and all the recruiters were great and responsive. My tip: research the team you're going to be part of, otherwise, the behavioral interviews can be pretty tough.