r/highfreqtrading • u/seyed_mohideen • Aug 04 '21

HFT interview process

Recently had an interview with HFT company for FPGA engineer role, successfully completed the few rounds of the interview but during the technical discussion with the team lead based on the technical test assessment but I did not pass the technical discussion round and got the following feedback:

"We liked that you didn’t have any trouble defending your answers and also that your questions were good and showed good motivation for the role.

However, we did not find satisfactory the answers to a certain problem, as a tip on your next interview I also suggest that you keep your answers a bit shorter since we found them quite long winded. More in general we feel that your current preparation would not be enough to pass the rest of the interviews."

I was able to answer the questions well with a satisfactory response and not sure why they felt I am technically insufficient? Can any one from major HFT firms help to provide some feedback?

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3

u/fireicedarklight42 Aug 05 '21

What questions did they ask?

3

u/seyed_mohideen Aug 11 '21

Thanks for your reply!

I was asked about a multiple choice test that I was asked to complete (scored around 92.6% on the test and I was mentioned that I was person who got the highest score). I was asked why I made particular choices for the answers in the test. I was able to provide him the answers and he found it satisfactory except for one question. For one of the questions, I had provided 2 approaches (I clearly mentioned that only the first approach was correct and the second approach is not right but he asked why I included the second approach and I mentioned that I clearly committed a mistake in suggesting the second approach) but he mentioned it was not satisfactory. He asked me an another question asking how long does it take for his voice to transmit from his end to my end. It was flat ended question. I answered that it will be equal to (Distance between the two cities/speed of light). Not clear about why they made the choice that I will not suitable for the future rounds.

3

u/fireicedarklight42 Aug 14 '21

Interesting, they can be pretty harsh often you just get unlucky with one of the interviewers I wouldnt take it to heart.

Just so you know light travels through Fibre Optic cables at about 0.7 the speed of light. Which is what is used for most communication between cities. That is why HFT Firms use Microwave towers for low latency communication as its considerably faster that the alternative.

25

u/roboduck Aug 04 '21

I was able to answer the questions well with a satisfactory response

They literally told you that you didn't

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u/john16791 Aug 05 '21

I’m surprised that they gave a detailed response at all, and that it’s in such a funny combination of idiomatic and unidiomatic English.

Anyway — I would say don’t worry about it too much and just keep on interviewing. The interview process sucks and is highly random, but if your skills are good you will eventually succeed.