Optiver Interview Questions
Practice the exact questions companies are asking right now.
Optimize flight and cargo bookings for profit
OptiCargo: make the booking algorithm profitable You are given two streams/lists: - Flights you may attempt to book. Each flight has: - flight_id ...
Compute probabilities and expectations in random processes
You are asked to solve the following probability/expectation questions. Unless stated otherwise, assume all random choices are uniform and independent...
Plan for timed probability assessment
Timed Probability/Statistics Assessment Strategy (30 Questions, Strict Time Limit) Prompt You are taking a timed online assessment with 30 probability...
Design a balloon stability tracker
Implement a class BalloonFestival to manage hot-air balloons and wind fields over time, and to report rewarded balloons at inspection times. Methods a...
Optimize switching puzzle solution
Consider a switching puzzle on an m×n grid of lights where toggling a cell flips its state and that of its orthogonal neighbors (Lights Out variant). ...
Analyze EV, arbitrage, and bet sizing across games
Betting Games: EV, Variance, Arbitrage, and Sizing Context You will be shown payout tables or odds for three independent games. Your task is to quickl...
Solve numeric sequence pattern puzzles
Sequence Prediction Task You are given five independent number sequences. For each, determine the next term and briefly explain the rule you used. Ass...
Answer why SWE and why Optiver
Behavioral questions (trading firm SWE intern) You are in behavioral interviews for a SWE internship at a high-frequency/prop trading firm. Prepare st...
Design a Balloon Festival Simulator
Implement a class BalloonFestival with the following API and rules. Goal Track hot air balloons (yours and competitors), evolving wind fields, and bal...
Solve probability and expectation problems
Probability and Expectation Practice (Take‑home) Assume all coins and dice are fair unless stated otherwise. Show reasoning and final results. 1) Thre...
Design a topic-based news subscription system
Topic-Based News Subscription Service — Design and Implementation Context Build an in-memory service that manages subscribers and delivers relevant ne...
Design a queue and analyze tradeoffs
Design a FIFO queue data structure that supports enqueue, dequeue, peek, and isEmpty. Compare implementations using a singly linked list, a dynamic ar...
Design an object-oriented queue and compare implementations
You are asked to design an object-oriented Queue abstraction and discuss how it can be implemented internally in different ways. Describe: 1. Queue in...
Implement price-based order matcher
Design and implement a price-based order matcher for unit-sized orders. You are given an array orders where each element is [type, price]: type = 1 de...
Find patterns in numeric sequences quickly
Pattern-Finding Number Sequences (No Calculator) In a fast technical screen, identify the next term for each sequence and briefly explain the rule you...
Compute expectations, conditionals, odds, and distributions
Fast Probability and Statistics (No Calculator) Context: Answer quickly with mental math and concise reasoning. Show set-up and any helpful shortcuts....
Design and backtest a trading strategy
Minute-Level Mean-Reversion Strategy: Design, Backtest, Validation, and Significance Context You are given minute-level OHLCV data (open, high, low, c...
Compute expected coin flips to meet on octagon
Meeting Time on a Random Walk Around an Octagon Problem Two independent particles start at opposite vertices (four edges apart) of a regular octagon. ...
Design a satellite propagation simulator
Object-Oriented SatelliteNetwork: Message Propagation Simulator Design and implement an object-oriented SatelliteNetwork that processes a stream of in...
Simulate return-weighted rebalancing strategy
Problem: Momentum-weighted daily log-return statistics You have N assets with end-of-day prices over T trading days. Let prices[i][t] be the closing p...