Highbridge Capital Management Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process included a 1-hour phone screen which was a straightforward technical interview. Following that, there were two onsite visits. The first onsite involved technical interviews with several engineers and managers, all of which were technical and incorporated whiteboarding. The second onsite was to meet additional team members, including the head of engineering.

The first round was a telephone interview that lasted 30 minutes. It was a result of connecting at the school career fair. Initially, they inquired about my previous experience and programming background, with a specific focus on projects I had completed. They also posed some fundamental Java questions. I managed to answer them, even though some were a bit unfamiliar. I thought it went well, but I was rejected and didn't find out why. It was disappointing.

This was for a Java development role. I had two phone screens, one 30 mins and another 90 mins, and then a 2-hour in-person interview. Interestingly, no Java or any programming questions came up at all. The manager wasn't focused on past problem-solving, but solely on re-architecting their current system. They gave me detailed specs and asked for a deep dive into how I'd re-architect it for redundancy, HA, etc., requesting state diagrams, actor/activity diagrams, and use cases. Apparently, they brought in 12 candidates from one agency and many from others too. My feedback was 'perfect, but we're not hiring now.' It seems they offered a high salary range to get top talent and then picked their brains for free system redesign ideas. They documented everything I said on the phone screen and collected all architectural schematics I drew during the face-to-face, but excluded anything detailing past solutions. It was clear they only wanted solutions to their business problem, not to hire someone. The agency has stopped sending candidates because it's a waste of time.