Learn their mission, client base, background, weaknesses, and strengths. You also should know about current happenings with the organization. Interviewers will expect you to know something about the company you want to work for and, depending on the size of the company, something about the area or division you would be working in. It’s nice to know about the company as a whole, but it’s more useful to know about specific business units or departments.
Likewise, you also need to know about the position, so study the job description. You’ll be better able to match your experience to the required skills.
Finally, do a quick internet search for the people you’ll be speaking to. Knowing what they’ve done professionally can help you make connections during the conversation. Also, stick to professional activities only.
First impressions matter. You should look like you could work for the company, but not quite like you do every day. That means playing to your audience. People interviewing at a bank would not wear the same clothes as people interviewing at a fashion store. As long as you know anything about how the company works, you should know what to wear.
Landing a software engineering role at a prestigious financial services firm like Fidelity Investments requires rigorous technical preparation. With its massive scale of operations and ever-evolving technological landscape Fidelity needs software engineers who can hit the ground running.
This article provides an inside look at Fidelity’s software engineer interview process We compiled a list of the top 25 most commonly asked interview questions for both software engineer and senior software engineer roles at Fidelity Read on to get insights into the types of questions you’ll face, along with sample responses and expert tips to ace your upcoming Fidelity interview.
Why Prepare for Fidelity Software Engineer Interview Questions?
Thoroughly preparing for your Fidelity software engineering interview is key for several reasons
-
The competition is fierce – Fidelity receives thousands of applicants annually for software engineering roles. Standing out requires exceptional technical know-how and communication skills.
-
The role is complex – Fidelity deals with huge data systems, legacy codebases, security concerns, regulatory requirements, and rapid scaling needs. You must demonstrate broad expertise to handle the complexity.
-
It shows commitment – Fidelity wants self-motivated candidates who take the initiative to prepare. Your willingness to research and practice for interviews displays genuine interest.
-
It builds confidence – When you know what to expect, you can put your nerves at ease. Practicing responses results in greater confidence and stronger performance during actual interviews.
Let’s dive in and explore how to master the top software engineer interview questions at Fidelity Investments.
Fidelity Software Engineer Interview Questions and Answers
Technical Questions
1. What programming languages, frameworks and tools are you most familiar with?
Fidelity wants engineers fluent in languages like Java, Python, C#, JavaScript, and SQL. Discuss your experience with specific frameworks like React, Node.js, and .NET Core that align with their tech stack. Mention tools like Git, Kubernetes, Kafka, Docker, and AWS services.
2. Explain how you would improve the performance of an existing application.
Demonstrate your performance troubleshooting skills. Discuss analyzing slow code paths through profiling, reducing server calls with caching, optimizing databases through indexes and queries, and refactoring inefficient algorithms. Provide examples of how much you improved performance in past projects.
3. How would you design an ATM software system?
This system design question tests your technical design abilities. Cover high-level architecture, classes for key objects like Customer, Account, Transaction, security considerations like PIN verification, interface protocols, and testing methodology. Showcase your expertise in designing large-scale systems.
4. What techniques or principles would you use for writing clean, maintainable code?
Share coding best practices like modularity through functions/classes, descriptive naming, separation of concerns, DRY (don’t repeat yourself) principle, defensive coding, error handling, automated testing, and thorough documentation. Demonstrate your commitment to code quality.
5. Explain how you have optimized software applications for maximum speed and scalability.
Speed and scalability are key at Fidelity’s scale. Discuss strategies like caching, asynchronous processing, database optimization, decoupling bottlenecks, autoscaling, and monitoring. Provide real examples of how you achieved faster speeds and accommodate spikes in traffic volumes.
6. How would you integrate security practices into the software development process?
Security is crucial when handling sensitive financial data. Highlight methods like threat modeling, automated security testing, code reviews, applying secure coding standards like OWASP guidelines, credential management, principles of least privilege, and installing security updates proactively.
7. What experience do you have with Agile software development methodologies?
Agile is embraced at Fidelity. Share examples of your hands-on experience with Scrum, test-driven development, continuous integration/deployment, pair programming, user story estimation, and sprint retrospectives. Demonstrate fluency with Agile principles and competency working in Agile teams.
8. Explain how you would refactor a monolithic application into microservices.
Microservices power Fidelity’s evolving architecture. Discuss critical steps like identifying domain boundaries, separating business logic, establishing communication protocols, implementing CI/CD pipelines, setting up monitoring, and gradual rollout. Outline how microservices benefit scalability, flexibility and team velocity.
9. How would you troubleshoot a performance issue or bug in a production environment?
Debugging in prod requires methodical prioritization. Share techniques like reviewing logs/metrics, reproducing locally, isolating components, rolling back recent changes, making incremental fixes, obfuscating PII, and running test coverage. Demonstrate your disciplined approach to diagnosing and resolving live issues.
10. What experience do you have working with cloud platforms like AWS?
Fidelity utilizes public cloud extensively. Highlight your hands-on expertise with AWS services like EC2, S3, Lambda, API Gateway, ECS, and RDS. Provide specific examples of how you built and managed cloud architectures. Cloud knowledge is a major plus.
Behavioral Questions
11. Tell me about a time when you successfully led a software development team.
Relationship-building and leadership skills matter at Fidelity. Share a story highlighting your strengths managing and motivating an engineering team. Discuss techniques you used to set clear goals, empower team members, provide feedback and guidance, boost productivity, and foster collaboration. Demonstrate your leadership style.
12. Describe a scenario where you had to collaborate with product managers and design teams to deliver a software solution.
Software engineering requires close cross-functional alignment. Recount a time working constructively with PMs and designers to build an effective solution. Share how you facilitated requirements gathering, prototyping, user testing, and iteration based on feedback. Prove you can collaborate smoothly.
13. Share an example of when you had to manage conflicting priorities and deadlines.
Juggling competing deliverables comes with the territory. Discuss how you managed stakeholder expectations, assessed urgency, optimized schedules, obtained resources, pushed back when needed, and kept teams aligned on priorities using tools like roadmaps. Demonstrate your organizational skills.
14. Tell me about a time you made a mistake that taught you an important lesson.
Everyone makes mistakes – what matters is learning from them. Share an example like missing a defect due to lack of test coverage, performance issues from inefficient code, or a production bug that caused downtime. Explain the lessons you learned and changes you implemented afterward. Showcase growth mindset.
15. Describe a technically complex project that you are proud of completing.
Engineering is about problem-solving and delivery. Walk through a technically challenging project, like migrating legacy systems to the cloud or building a data analytics platform. Explain technical hurdles overcome, your contributions, and results achieved. Demonstrate your track record of successfully tackling complexity.
16. Tell me about a time you had to quickly learn a new programming language, framework or other technology for a project.
Constant learning is a must in tech. Share an example of when you rapidly picked up new skills through self-study, prototyping, finding mentors, reading documentation, and experimenting. Discuss the specific methods you used to get productive quickly. Prove you can adapt and learn.
17. Share an example of when you went above and beyond the requirements for a project.
Strong performers exceed expectations. Recount a time you added value by solving an additional problem, improving UX beyond requirements, implementing beneficial new features, enhancing performance substantially, or any other example of going the extra mile. Highlight your dedication.
18. Tell me about a challenging situation you faced on a software project and how you resolved it.
Persistence pays off. Discuss a tough scenario like unclear requirements, repeated build failures, or a tight deadline. Explain how you systematically worked through the challenges to find solutions, like facilitating additional planning, debugging infrastructure issues, raising risks early, and asking for help when needed. Demonstrate grit.
19. Describe a time when you mentored someone technically or provided coaching.
Fidelity values team development. Share a story of when you trained a new engineer through code reviews, technical guidance, architecture discussions, debugging assistance, or knowledge sharing. Outline the specific things you did to help them grow and succeed in their role. Prove you can develop talent.
20. Tell me about a time you successfully influenced a team to move in a direction you thought was best.
Leadership involves convincing others. Share an example of when you guided a team toward a solution you identified as ideal, like adopting a new toolchain, switching architectures, or embracing a process change. Discuss how you influenced them through data, rational arguments, consensus-building, and addressing concerns transparently. Demonstrate sound judgment and influencing skills.
Fidelity Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions
Senior engineers face additional leadership and architecture questions:
21. How would you design the architecture for an enterprise customer portal and reporting system?
Demonstrate your experience designing complex systems. Cover requirements gathering, separation of concerns between frontend, backend, APIs, data layer, key integrations, scalability considerations, security controls, and DevOps implementation. Share how you would lead teams to execute your architecture successfully.
**22. Tell
Review your resumeMake a point of reading over your resume as part of your preparations, so you can respond naturally to questions about it. This is especially important if it’s been a while since you’ve glanced at it—or if you added custom items for this specific job.
Ask the person in charge of hiring you or human resources how the interview will go and who will be there. You’ll be able to prepare more specifically if you know what to expect.
Practicing your responses to common questions will help you give thoughtful answers about your key selling points. Be conversational and authentic with your answers—interviewers want to get to know the real person behind the resume. Share how you got to this point in your career and how you’ve used your strengths to make your story stand out. Be positive in your answers, and never criticize anyone.
At a minimum, try rehearsing your answers to these practice questions with a friend:
- Tell us about yourself.
- What is your greatest accomplishment?
- Why do you want this job with our company?
- What is a challenge you’ve overcome?
- Why did you leave your last job?
- How would you describe yourself?
- Why should we hire you?
You also need to consider questions to ask your interviewer. This is a great chance to learn more about the company and shows the interviewer that you are interested and ready to work.
4 things you may not know about 529 plans
Clicking a link will open a new window. Send to Please enter a valid email address Your email address Please enter a valid email address Message.
Important legal information about the email you will be sending. You agree to use your real email address and only send it to people you know when you use this service. It is a violation of law in some juristictions to falsely identify yourself in an email. All information you provide will be used solely for the purpose of sending the email on your behalf. The subject line of the email you send will be “Fidelity. com”.
Thanks for you sent email.
If you feel ready for your job interview, you’ll be more calm and sure of yourself when the interview starts. Our top interview tips include researching the organization, planning your look, and practicing some common interview questions.
Learn their mission, client base, background, weaknesses, and strengths. You also should know about current happenings with the organization. Interviewers will expect you to know something about the company you want to work for and, depending on the size of the company, something about the area or division you would be working in. It’s nice to know about the company as a whole, but it’s more useful to know about specific business units or departments.
Likewise, you also need to know about the position, so study the job description. You’ll be better able to match your experience to the required skills.
Finally, do a quick internet search for the people you’ll be speaking to. Knowing what they’ve done professionally can help you make connections during the conversation. Also, stick to professional activities only.
First impressions matter. You should look like you could work for the company, but not quite like you do every day. That means playing to your audience. People interviewing at a bank would not wear the same clothes as people interviewing at a fashion store. As long as you know anything about how the company works, you should know what to wear.
Plan your outfit in advance, so you aren’t rushed.
- Step it up a notch. Even though some jobs may be casual, be safe and wear classic, neutral clothes to work.
- Go simple. Skip anything flashy or distracting. Keep it clean. Make sure everything is in good shape and iron your clothes.
- Keep it clean. Make sure everything is in good shape and iron your clothes.
- Remember the details. Be freshly groomed with neat hair, makeup, and nails.
- Everything you bring is part of your overall impression. Notepads, pens, purses, and briefcases are all small items that can make or break your look, so make sure they are all in good shape.
Behavioral Interviews: What They Are & How to Crush Them
FAQ
How hard is a Fidelity interview?
How many interviews are there at Fidelity?
How long does the fidelity interview process take?
How many questions did Fidelity Investments software engineer ask?
274 Fidelity Investments Software Engineer interview questions and 233 interview reviews. Free interview details posted anonymously by Fidelity Investments interview candidates.
What was the interview process like at Fidelity Investments?
2 rounds, 30 minute phone call with recruiter + 1 hour zoom with a software developer. First round was broad technical questions about OOP, and several behavioral questions. Second round was all technical with a little bit of coding while you shared your screen on zoom. Got a burning question about Fidelity Investments? Just ask!
What is the Fidelity Investments hiring process?
The Fidelity Investments hiring process typically begins with an initial phone screening or email exchange with a recruiter, followed by one or more video interviews with hiring managers and colleagues. The process may also include technical assessments or tests, depending on the role.
Is fidelity a good investment company?
Known for its exceptional customer service, innovative technology, and extensive range of investment products, Fidelity has consistently been a leader in the industry. As a potential candidate for this prestigious company, it is essential to be well-prepared for your interview.
