Optiver Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 474 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Optiver.
Optiver
Software Engineer
Entry Difficult Positive experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Technical screen Technical screen
Interview formats
Technical Coding System Design
I got contacted by a recruiter, then had a 2-3 hour online assessment. After that, there was a 1-hour technical interview where I had to design a queue with a circular buffer. The final round consisted of two 1-hour technical interviews. One involved a leetcode problem, medium difficulty, but more focused on coding and design than typical leetcode problems. The other was a pretty laid-back system design interview about exchanges. I heard they have a hire-to-fire mentality, with a 50% layoff rate, so I'm glad I didn't get the offer.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Can you design an implementation for a circular buffer queue?
- How would you implement a queue using a circular buffer?
Optiver
Software Engineer
Intern Difficult Negative experience No offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Take home Technical screen
Interview formats
Coding Technical
We have an Online Assessment (OA) which consists of 3 parts. First is the Optiver - Campus Software Engineer Test 2025 - US, which has 1 coding question and takes about 75 minutes. You can use C++, Java, or Python. Second is the Coding Knowledge part, which tests your programming and computer systems understanding, taking about 20 minutes. Third is Zap-N, a set of short neuro assessment games, where each game takes 2 to 15 minutes.
Confirmed questions3 questions
- A coding question to be solved using C++, Java, or Python.
- An evaluation of your programming and computer systems knowledge.
- A series of short neuro assessment games, each lasting between 2 and 15 minutes.
Optiver
Software Engineer
Mid Difficult Positive experience Accept offer 5 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Phone screen Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Coding System Design Technical
Started with HR, then an online assessment (OA), followed by a phone interview, and finally two rounds of interviews. The second OA was a bit tedious. The phone interview was a standard coding interview. The final rounds were difficult: one was a system design interview with no coding, and the other was a technical interview.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Can you design a trading system server?
Optiver Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Optiver interview reports.
“What is the minimum number of bits needed to represent a 16-digit positive integer in binary, assuming no leading zeros?”
Read reports →“Write a program to calculate the number of days between two dates, utilizing a blackbox function that provides the number of days in a given month and year.”
Read reports →“Given sequences of digits of increasing length, shown one at a time, memorize them and then re-enter them in sorted order.”
Read reports →“Given a list of currency conversion rates, how would you convert an amount from one currency to another?”
Read reports →“What are the differences between programming languages like C/C++ and Java/C#, specifically regarding garbage collection?”
Read report →“How would you update a system's state when given a sequence of actions as input?”
Read report →“Can you write a log server that records all logs from the latest 1 hour?”
Read report →“Can you compare which struct takes more memory? Knowing C++ goes a long way, including struct data type.”
Read report →“Can you answer a general Python question that covers class definitions, dunder methods, and decorators?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 474 Optiver interview reports.