Type · System Design
Design a system to process and categorize user spending from bank transaction data. Consider data ingestion, categorization logic (rule-based and potentially ML-based), storage, and how to serve this data to the frontend.
How to Pass the Alan Software Engineer Interview in 2026
The Alan DNA (TL;DR)
The 'Vision Alignment' interview at Alan heavily weights a candidate's ability to articulate how their work directly contributes to the company's mission of simplifying health finance, often requiring examples of quantifiable impact on user experience or operational efficiency.
The Alan Interview Loop
Your onsite loop will typically consist of 5 rounds.
- 1
Round 1
Recruiter ScreenMotivation, role fit, logistics. - 2
Round 2
Coding ScreenLeetCode-medium algorithmic problems under time pressure. - 3
Round 3
System DesignDistributed systems, trade-offs at scale, architecture under constraints. - 4
Round 4
Onsite CodingLeetCode-hard, debugging, code clarity, edge cases. - 5
Round 5
Behavioral / LeadershipPast evidence of ownership, influence, resolving conflict.
The Danger Zone: Top Reasons Candidates Fail
Based on our database of Alan interview outcomes, avoid these common traps:
- Failing to articulate their specific actions and contributions.
- Not demonstrating an understanding of what Alan does or its market position.
- Inefficiently searching for accounts or transfers.
- Focusing only on the positive outcome without discussing challenges or learnings.
Test Yourself: Real Alan Questions
Three real prompts pulled from our database.
Type · Algorithm
Given a list of financial transactions (each with a timestamp, amount, and user ID), write a function to calculate the daily spending for each user. Handle potential duplicates and out-of-order timestamps.
Type · Past Experience
Tell me about a time you had to influence a senior stakeholder or a cross-functional team to adopt your product vision or strategy when they were initially resistant.
+ many more questions, signals, and worked examples
Sign up to unlock the full Alan grading rubric
Alan Interview Question Bank
A sample from our database, grouped by round. Sign up to see the full set.
9 of 21 questions shown
1
Recruiter Screen
1- 1
Type · Motivation
Why are you interested in working at Alan, and what excites you about the fintech space specifically?
2
Coding Screen
3- 2
Type · Algorithm
Given a list of financial transactions (each with a timestamp, amount, and user ID), write a function to calculate the daily spending for each user. Handle potential duplicates and out-of-order timestamps. - 3
Type · Algorithm
Implement a function to detect potential fraudulent transactions. Given a list of transactions and a set of rules (e.g., transactions over $1000 from a new user within 24 hours), identify suspicious ones. Assume rules can be complex and dynamic. - + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
3
System Design
4- 4
Type · System Design
Design a system to process and categorize user spending from bank transaction data. Consider data ingestion, categorization logic (rule-based and potentially ML-based), storage, and how to serve this data to the frontend. - 5
Type · System Design
Design a real-time notification system for users about significant account activity (e.g., large deposits, low balance alerts, potential fraud). How would you ensure low latency and high availability? - + 2 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
4
Onsite Coding
4- 6
Type · Algorithm
Write a function to calculate the moving average of a user's transaction amounts over a rolling window of N days. Optimize for scenarios where new transactions are added frequently. - 7
Type · Debugging
A user reports that their spending summary for last month is incorrect. Here's a snippet of the relevant code and logs. Identify the bug and fix it. - + 2 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
5
Behavioral / Leadership
9- 8
Type · Past Experience
Tell me about a time you had to influence a senior stakeholder or a cross-functional team to adopt your product vision or strategy when they were initially resistant. - 9
Type · Conflict Resolution
Tell me about a time you had a significant disagreement with a colleague or team member. How did you approach the situation, and what was the outcome? - + 7 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
Unlock all 21 Alan questions, free
No credit card. Every question with its framework, the grading signals interviewers score against, and a worked answer for each.
Interview tracks at Alan
How Alan's DNA translates across functions. Pick your role.
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Practice Alan interviews end-to-end
Alan Mock Interview
Run a live mock interview with our AI interviewer using Alan-style prompts. Get scored on structure, signal, and answer length - exactly how the real loop grades you.
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STAR Stories for Alan Behavioral Rounds
Build a Story Bank of your past wins, mapped to the leadership signals Alan interviewers grade on. Reuse them across every behavioral round.
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Alan Interview Prep Hub
The frameworks behind every Alan round: CIRCLES for product sense, hypothesis-driven debugging for analytical, STAR for behavioral. Learn each one in 10 minutes.
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Interview Frameworks
CIRCLES, STAR, AARRR, RICE, MECE. The exact frameworks that make Alan interviewers nod instead of frown. Step-by-step playbooks with the moves and the pitfalls.
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Sample answers
What a strong answer to these Alan interview questions shows.
Design a system to process and categorize user spending from bank transaction data. Consider data ingestion, categorization logic (rule-based and potentially ML-based), storage, and how to serve this data to the frontend.
A strong answer shows: Understanding of distributed systems principles.; Ability to design scalable and reliable systems.; Consideration of different data storage and processing technologies.; Awareness of trade-offs (consistency vs. availability, cost vs. performance)..
Given a list of financial transactions (each with a timestamp, amount, and user ID), write a function to calculate the daily spending for each user. Handle potential duplicates and out-of-order timestamps.
A strong answer shows: Efficient data structure usage (hash map).; Correct handling of time/date aggregation.; Robustness to edge cases and data inconsistencies..
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