Learn how to prepare for Visa interviews with this in-depth guide.
Visa, the card services and digital payments technology company connects customers to businesses and businesses to banks and governments.
Visa is a global leader in the finance industry and continuously growing. Visa hires for roles (mainly hybrid) all over the world. If you’re an innovator interested in fintech, Visa could be a great next home for your career.
Below, we break down the Visa interview process and the top questions you should expect to answer.
Visa Interview Process
Visa's interview process is pretty standard compared to similar top tech companies.
The process includes a phone call with a Visa recruiter, a technical online assessment, and a final round of three interviews: domain-focused and behavioral.
The Visa interview process typically takes 4–6 weeks and involves:
- Recruiter phone screen,
- Technical screen,
- Final round.
Recruiter phone screen
The first step of your Visa interview process is a short call (~30 min) with a Visa recruiter.
Expect to discuss your resume and background as they relate to the role and hear logistics about the role and the rest of the interview process.
Take this opportunity to ask your recruiter any questions about your upcoming interview process.
Technical screen
The technical screen at Visa is a 70-minute coding challenge on CodeSignal with four questions about data structures and algorithms.
The online assessment at Visa is medium difficulty on average, but the questions increase in difficulty as you go and can range from easy to hard.
Final rounds
The final round at Visa typically includes three 45-minute interviews. Two of these vary and are domain-focused, but every candidate gets a behavioral round, which assesses culture fit.
Top Visa Interview Questions
These are examples of real interview questions asked at Visa as reported by candidates.
Behavioral
- Why do you want to work at Visa?
- Tell me about yourself.
- Why do you think we should not hire you?
- What types of team members do you find difficult to work with?
- Tell me about your past projects.
Coding
- Given a string, return the number of palindromic substrings in it.
- Given an nxn grid of 1s and 0s, return the number of islands in the input.
- Given an array, find the two sum.
- Find the number of rotations in a circularly sorted array.
- How is object-oriented programming (OOP) different from procedural programming?
System design
- Design a user login system.
- Design a system to store multiple images in a single file.
- Design a payment gateway that handles millions of transactions per second.
- Design a system to detect fraudulent transactions in real-time.
- Design an API gateway that handles all Visa transactions.
Machine Learning
- Given an integer array nums and an integer k, return true if nums has a subarray of at least two elements whose sum is a multiple of k.
- Given an array of points on a plane (x,y), write a function to return the distance between the closest pair of points.
- Given the head of two singly linked lists, write a function to return the point where they intersect (if any).
Data Science
- LRU Cache
- Group anagrams
- Search in rotated sorted array
- Linked List Cycle
- Merge two sorted lists
- Given an array, find the two sum.
Product Management
- Estimate the daily number of transactions in the US.
- As a PM, what actions did you take after releasing a product?
- Describe the Visa business model.
- Describe the revenue model for the team's product. What are the biggest benefits of this product?
Visa Interview Loops
Behavioral
The behavioral round at Visa is a 45-minute conversational interview that assesses soft skills and cultural fit.
Expect to answer questions like, “Tell me about yourself.” and “Why do you want to work at Visa?.
Prepare for your behavioral round by creating a story bank of past experience anecdotes that align with Visa’s leadership principles ahead of this round.
These are Visa’s leadership principles:
- Lead courageously
- Obsess about customers
- Collaborate as one Visa
- Execute with excellence
Coding
Visa’s coding rounds vary depending on role and seniority level.
Most candidates have a first 45-minute coding round, consisting of a coding challenge similar to the technical screen.
Some candidates also get a second round that discusses past experiences and projects related to the role.
In contrast, other candidates get a second round of a more in-depth coding challenge.
Common coding topics at Visa:
- Arrays
- Linked lists
- Sorting
- Stacks and Queues
- Graphs and Trees
- Strings
- Dynamic programming
- Java
System design
The system design round at Visa is a 45-minute interview where you design a solution to a high-level problem statement. Not all candidates receive this interview; system design at Visa is usually reserved for more senior candidates.
Expect a question about payment processing and performant, scalable, fault-tolerant systems.
Remember to ask clarifying questions and discuss your decision-making process. Plan to work through your design in the first 30 minutes, leaving about 15 minutes to answer follow-up questions from the interviewer.
Ahead of time, practice answering system design questions and get to know Visa’s payment processing systems and the company.
Check out Visa’s news page to learn about Visa’s current ventures, which your problem statement could tie into.
Machine learning
Visa’s machine learning round usually involves a case study to assess your knowledge of ML algorithms and developing and implementing ML models.
Expect to analyze a dataset or solve a practical problem related to Visa's operations.
Also, prepare to discuss your past ML experiences and projects related to the role.
Data Science
Your technical screen assesses Python and SQL skills for the data science round at Visa.
Then, your DS final round involves one or multiple case studies, depending on the role. Typically, the two case study rounds are related to business acumen and experimental design.
To prepare for your case study, study experimentation questions and familiarize yourself with Visa's products, services, and industry position so you can answer practical questions with a strong understanding of the company.
Product management
The product management round at Visa includes two rounds, 45–60 minutes each, with various stakeholders. In one of the rounds, prepare to deep dive into your work history and what PM projects you’ve been a part of that are relevant to the role. In the second round, you’ll get a small case study.
To prepare for your PM rounds, research Visa for your case study, practice different PM interview questions, and explore more about PM at Visa on Visa’s Product and Innovation team page.
Visa Interview Tips
Visa values innovation and collaboration.
Visa is focused on hiring new employees who can help it innovate and employees who are great at cross-team collaboration.
Create a story bank of anecdotes highlighting past situations where you demonstrated innovation and collaboration.
Having these examples ready beforehand lets you incorporate the stories into any interview round, as applicable.
Visa looks for a customer-first mindset.
It’s named in Visa's core values: “Obsess about customers.” Make it known in your interviews that your priority is the customer to stand out. Anticipate end users’ needs and mention the customer in your answers to practical questions.
Know Visa inside and out.
Just because you have experience swiping a Visa credit card, don’t sleep on getting to know Visa as a company fully.
This research is essential to show your interest and better answer practical questions that will likely pop up throughout your interview loops.
Check out these Visa resources.
- Read up on current news and ventures on Visa’s news page.
- Take a look at Visa press releases.
- Get to know Visa’s teams.
- Understand Visa’s values on Visa’s leadership principles page.
FAQs
How should I prepare for my interview at Visa?
- Practice interview questions asked at Visa.
- Refresh your knowledge of coding questions, focusing on SQL and Python.
- Create a story bank of behavioral question answers that align with Visa's leadership principles.
- Take an Exponent interview course in your domain: ML engineering, data science, SWE, system design, or PM.
- Book a mock interview to hash out commonly asked questions in real-time.
Does Visa hire for remote roles?
Most (90%) of Visa roles are hybrid, but all hybrid roles at Visa come with the opportunity to work remotely for up to four weeks each year while traveling. Look up currently open roles at Visa to learn more.
Does Visa hire students or new grads?
Yes! Visa hosts global internships for current students, offers full-time roles for new grads, and also has apprenticeship programs. Browse currently open opportunities on Visa’s University Recruiting page.
More Visa Interview Prep Resources
Exponent has extensive resources to prepare you to feel your best when it comes time for your interview at Visa:
Your Exponent membership awaits.
Exponent is the fastest-growing tech interview prep platform. Get free interview guides, insider tips, and courses.
Create your free account