I applied through their career portal and received an invitation for a HackerRank challenge a few days later. The challenge consisted of 8 questions (5 multiple-choice and 3 coding questions) to be solved in 150 minutes. All questions were relatively easy, except for the last one, which required significant coding and designing an approach before diving deep into implementation.

After passing the challenge, I was invited for a phone interview with my HR recruiter and a Team Lead. They asked about my previous experiences and my motives for joining Optiver. They also reviewed my challenge solutions and asked follow-up questions on one of the problems.

Next, I was invited for an on-site interview round in Amsterdam. They paid for my flight and a two-night stay at a hotel near the company.

The on-site interviews consisted of:

• 1 coding interview
• 1 system design interview
• 2 HR interviews

The technical interviews focused on e-trading related questions. However, they assume zero knowledge in trading and do their best to explain all relevant trading information for each question.

For the system design interview, you need to know the very basics of networking (TCP, UDP, uni/multi/broad-cast, how network latency and bandwidth work, etc.) in addition to general system design principles. You are expected to discuss trade-offs in your design and ask numerous questions about requirements, constraints, and trading specifics.

A few hours after my interviews, I received a call from my recruiter with the acceptance and the offer.

Overall, the experience was great, and the offer was attractive, so I accepted it.

Usual HR questions.

Why do you want to join Optiver?