HPR Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

Submitted my application online and also pinged the head university recruiter, Avery Hale. The process involved an online assessment (which I didn't totally ace) followed by a phone screen. Then, there were two 45-minute technical interviews, plus a 45-minute informal chat with a director. I ended up getting an offer. Important note: the online assessment is only offered in C, and so are the technical interviews. You're expected to be comfortable with C syntax and, to some extent, its lower-level features like bitwise operations. For the 2x45 technical interviews, about 15-20 minutes was spent on behavioral/technical Q&A, and the remaining 25-30 minutes was for a coding problem. The chat with the tech director was completely non-technical and non-behavioral; it was just a casual conversation about the intern experience at HPR.

I had my onsite interviews at HPR. It was the typical mix of coding and conceptual technical questions. HPR seems like a good company, they're solid financially and growing, tackling challenging and interesting problems in capital markets infrastructure and risk management. Their engineers and managers are both smart and good to talk to. They're looking for candidates strong in: C programming, algorithms/data structures (in C only), high performance software (low latency, cache-aware, massive data), computer networking, and computer architecture fundamentals. This makes sense given their industry. For a lead role, you really need deep, proven experience in these areas. If you haven't done this recently or professionally, you'll need to adjust your focus or study up. What stood out was the heavy emphasis on C. If you usually code in C++, try not to say things like 'in C++, you'd do it this way, but in C it's done like this' during coding. It doesn't land well. Also, don't go on too long about non-C software design if you have C experience. Honestly, I'm surprised they don't use a take-home test focused on design for candidates not currently doing pure C, especially since I have a lot of past pure C experience.

They had several interview rounds. It started with an HR interview, then a technical phone screen, followed by another HR interview and discussion. Then there were technical interviews with developers and senior management. Another HR interview and discussion happened. They seemed very skeptical and distrustful, which felt like a consistent theme.