I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Optiver (Chicago, IL) in June 2015
Interview
I had the displeasure of a phone screen with an HR person who thought they were qualified to conduct a sound technical assessment of a candidate. The approach used by the HR person was akin to "profiling" the candidate, rather than to truly gauge their skills as a technical person would. For all intents and purposes, misunderstandings turn into assumptions which soon morph into core beliefs, all the while not bothering to clear any of them up with the candidate. This bureaucratic screening process is one that Optiver specializes in well.
A bit anxiety inducing, there were two developers observing and asking questions. Real-time problem solving required, conducted on Hacker Rank virtually, video and mic enabled - quite nervewracking to say the least
I had one round, which was an online HackerRank test. I wasn’t able to pass all the test cases, and as a result, I did not progress to the next stage of the process.
A lot of interviews. Started off with a call, then some online tests. Then a technical interview. Then a live coding interview along with a architecture interview. Last step would have been final day interview but I did not get that far.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How many bits do you need to store a number up to X. And how can you represent that.