50% off everything
Solaris logo

Growth · Software Engineer Interview Guide

Interview language: English

How to Pass the Solaris Software Engineer Interview in 2026

The Solaris DNA (TL;DR)

The bar-raiser round at Solaris heavily evaluates a candidate's ability to navigate complex regulatory landscapes, particularly concerning the Service Platform. They seek individuals who can articulate how their work upholds Compliance and Data Protection Engineering standards while scaling financial services.

The Solaris Interview Loop

Your onsite loop will typically consist of 5 rounds.

  1. 1

    Round 1

    Recruiter Screen
    Motivation, role fit, logistics.
  2. 2

    Round 2

    Coding Screen
    LeetCode-medium algorithmic problems under time pressure.
  3. 3

    Round 3

    System Design
    Distributed systems, trade-offs at scale, architecture under constraints.
  4. 4

    Round 4

    Onsite Coding
    LeetCode-hard, debugging, code clarity, edge cases.
  5. 5

    Round 5

    Behavioral / Leadership
    Past evidence of ownership, influence, resolving conflict.

The Danger Zone: Top Reasons Candidates Fail

Based on our database of Solaris interview outcomes, avoid these common traps:

  • Incorrectly handling edge cases like empty transaction lists or transactions with identical timestamps.
  • Not handling different country code lengths or character sets.
  • Implementing locking at a too coarse-grained level (e.g., a single global lock), causing performance bottlenecks.
  • Not considering floating-point precision issues in financial calculations.

Test Yourself: Real Solaris Questions

Three real prompts pulled from our database.

Type · algorithmic

Implement a function to calculate the value-at-risk (VaR) for a portfolio of assets. Given a list of asset prices over time and their correlations, estimate the maximum potential loss over a given period with a certain confidence level. (Simplified model)

Type · data-structure

Design a data structure that can efficiently store and retrieve customer account balances, supporting operations like `deposit(account_id, amount)`, `withdraw(account_id, amount)`, and `getBalance(account_id)`. Ensure thread-safety for concurrent operations.

Type · debugging

A user reports that their transaction history is occasionally showing incorrect balances. Here's a simplified code snippet for updating balances. Identify potential bugs and suggest fixes.

+ many more questions, signals, and worked examples

Sign up to unlock the full Solaris grading rubric

Unlock the Solaris rubric, free

Solaris Interview Question Bank

A sample from our database, grouped by round. Sign up to see the full set.

9 of 15 questions shown

1

Recruiter Screen

1
  1. 1

    Type · motivation

    What interests you about working at Solaris, and specifically in the fintech space?
2

Coding Screen

3
  1. 2

    Type · algorithmic

    Given a list of financial transactions, each with a timestamp, amount, and sender/receiver IDs, write a function to find all transactions that occurred within a 5-minute window of each other and sum their amounts. Assume timestamps are sorted.
  2. 3

    Type · data-structure

    Design a data structure that can efficiently store and retrieve customer account balances, supporting operations like `deposit(account_id, amount)`, `withdraw(account_id, amount)`, and `getBalance(account_id)`. Ensure thread-safety for concurrent operations.
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
3

System Design

3
  1. 4

    Type · api-design

    Design an API for a real-time fraud detection system. Consider the endpoints, request/response formats, and how it would integrate with existing transaction processing systems.
  2. 5

    Type · scalability

    Solaris is experiencing a surge in new users. How would you scale our core banking platform to handle a 10x increase in transaction volume while maintaining low latency and high availability?
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
4

Onsite Coding

3
  1. 6

    Type · algorithmic

    Implement a function to calculate the value-at-risk (VaR) for a portfolio of assets. Given a list of asset prices over time and their correlations, estimate the maximum potential loss over a given period with a certain confidence level. (Simplified model)
  2. 7

    Type · code-quality

    Refactor the following legacy code for processing international wire transfers to improve readability, maintainability, and testability. Pay attention to error handling and potential security vulnerabilities.
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
5

Behavioral / Leadership

5
  1. 8

    Type · Conflict Resolution

    Tell me about a time you had a significant disagreement with a colleague or manager. How did you handle it, and what was the outcome?
  2. 9

    Type · ownership

    Tell me about a time you encountered a significant technical challenge in a project that was not explicitly assigned to you. How did you take ownership and what was the outcome?
  3. + 3 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)

Unlock all 15 Solaris questions, free

No credit card. Every question with its framework, the grading signals interviewers score against, and a worked answer for each.

Unlock all 15 Solaris questions

Interview tracks at Solaris

How Solaris's DNA translates across functions. Pick your role.

Compare Solaris with similar employers

Same DNA, different bar. Browse the closest companies in our database and see how their loops differ.

Practice Solaris interviews end-to-end

Sample answers

What a strong answer to these Solaris interview questions shows.

Implement a function to calculate the value-at-risk (VaR) for a portfolio of assets. Given a list of asset prices over time and their correlations, estimate the maximum potential loss over a given period with a certain confidence level. (Simplified model)

A strong answer shows: Correct implementation of a chosen VaR methodology (e.g., historical simulation, parametric).; Efficient data handling and calculation.; Clear code structure and handling of edge cases..

Design a data structure that can efficiently store and retrieve customer account balances, supporting operations like `deposit(account_id, amount)`, `withdraw(account_id, amount)`, and `getBalance(account_id)`. Ensure thread-safety for concurrent operations.

A strong answer shows: Choice of appropriate data structure (e.g., HashMap, ConcurrentHashMap).; Correct implementation of thread-safety mechanisms.; Discussion of potential deadlocks or performance implications of locking strategies..

FAQ

WorkfiveExplore careers on Workfive

Unlock the free Solaris interview guide

Sign up