Square Point Capital

Role: Software Engineer

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: August 2024

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Accepted Offer

Difficulty: Medium/Hard

Rounds: 5 rounds (HackerRank, 2 Live Coding, 1 Prob & Stats, 1 HR)

Topics Asked: HackerRank, LeetCode (medium difficulty), Probability, Statistics, Python (esoteric features like metaclasses, type hint system), CV/Projects, Culture fit.

Experience:

This candidate's experience for a Software Engineer role at Squarepoint Capital involved exclusively phone interviews, with no on-site or online assessment beyond the initial HackerRank.

Round 1: HackerRank
A 1-hour HackerRank assessment was administered, which was described as "not too hard."

Round 2: Live Coding (Zoom)
This round involved live coding over Zoom, focusing on LeetCode medium-level problems.

Round 3: Probability and Statistics (Zoom)
This was a relaxed round focused on probability and statistics. The programming question from a previous round was used as a springboard for a discussion on a statistics problem.

Round 4: Live Coding (Zoom)
Another live coding session over Zoom, again with LeetCode medium-level problems, but described as "more stressful" than the previous coding round.

Round 5: HR Interview
The final round was an HR interview. It was described as a chat with a senior developer, with no technical assessment, focusing strictly on culture fit.

Throughout the process, there was significant exploration of the candidate's CV, with considerable time spent discussing projects and past experiences from their current role. Interviewers also asked about esoteric Python features like metaclasses and niche aspects of the type hint system. Questions were sometimes worded ambiguously, making it unclear what was being asked.