Design a payment system.

"I gave a high level design, came up with requirements both functional and non functional, designed api's, data modeling etc. The feedback I got was that I did not do a deep dive on certain components"

"traditional interviews for MLE. coding rounds are AI-enabled meaning you can use claude or codex to write the code."

"It was very rigorous but the recruiter was actually accurate and helpful about what to prepare, which is rare and I really appreciated that. The process consisted of a system design interview and a coding interview. The system design round focused on designing a payment processing system. The interviewer pushed beyond a basic design and spent a lot of time exploring failure modes, retries, idempotency, operational concerns, and correctness under real-world conditions. It felt closer to designing something that could actually run in production than many system design interviews I've done elsewhere. The coding round was also fairly challenging. The problem itself wasn't especially difficult from an algorithmic perspective, but it required careful handling of edge cases and a precise understanding of the requirements. I felt like there was less emphasis on LeetCode-style tricks and more emphasis on building a correct, production-quality solution. What went well was that the interviewers were engaged and clearly knowledgeable. The conversations felt collaborative rather than adversarial. What didn't go well, at least for me, was that I underestimated how much depth they expected around correctness and edge cases. In hindsight, I would have spent more time validating assumptions and thinking through failure scenarios before diving into implementation."

"The process was short-lived for me, unfortunately. The coding interview was an hour long, and the question was similar to the game of life, but for an infection spreading across a 2D array. I approached it much too methodically - explaining my approach before implementing, like I've learned to do from past technical interviews. The thing about this one is that theres FIVE long parts, and you have to pass the test cases for each part before you move on to the next. If I could do it again I would be frantically coding from the very beginning - waste no time. Add print statements to debug. The interviewer doesn't help or guide much, its mostly on you."

"It was easy and helped me understand the role better before asking questions. This helped me tailor my responses better"

"The overall interview process with SoFi was structured, professional, and gave me a good opportunity to learn more about the team, the role, and the company’s expectations. The process included a mix of technical and behavioral conversations, which helped evaluate both engineering depth and culture fit. What went well was that the interviewers were thoughtful, respectful, and engaged throughout the conversations. I appreciated that the discussions were practical and focused on real engineering problems, tradeoffs, collaboration, and impact. The culture-focused conversations also gave me a better sense of how SoFi operates and what they value in senior engineers. What could have gone better was the scheduling and pacing of the interview process. Some of the rounds were grouped closely together, which made it harder to prepare deeply for each area, especially for system design and project deep dive discussions. I also would have appreciated a bit more clarity upfront on what each round would focus on and how to best prepare. Overall, it was a positive and rigorous interview experience. The process gave me a strong impression of SoFi’s engineering culture, and I appreciated the opportunity to meet with the team and discuss both technical leadership and execution in depth."