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Fidelity Investments coding interview and online assessment format, difficulty, and what changed in 2026

infra_ines · 6 replies

just wrapped the Fidelity coding rounds last month. sharing what I saw because a lot of the older forum posts describe a process that doesn't quite match what's happening now.

the OA (online assessment)

two problems on HackerRank. 90-minute window. you schedule it yourself within a few days of getting the link. I got: a graph traversal problem (find shortest path in a weighted graph, standard BFS/Dijkstra territory) a string parsing problem that was more implementation-heavy than algorithmic

difficulty: call it leetcode medium on both. not hard. if you've done 50-80 medium problems recently you should be fine. the OA is more of a bar-check than a differentiator. the scoring didn't feel like it cared about edge cases as much as "did you get the correct output on the visible test cases."

there are also a small number of multiple choice questions about Java and some data structures basics. these were trivial but don't skip them, they're timed per question.

the technical phone screen coding portion

this is different. one problem in CoderPad (live, shared). the problem I got was also medium-difficulty but the expectation here is clearly different: they want to see how you think, not just whether you can output code. I got stuck briefly on edge case handling and talked through it out loud and the interviewer helped me past it. that's fine and expected. don't freeze and go silent.

the onsite coding round

still one algorithmic problem but now with a design/extension layer. so you solve the core coding problem, then they ask you to extend it: "now what if the input could be millions of rows?" or "what if you needed to add X feature?" this tests whether you can think beyond the immediate solution.

a few notes on language choice: I used Python. nobody batted an eye. I've heard Java is common internally and might land better for some interviewers but I have no hard data on that. ask your recruiter if it matters for the specific team.

what's changed: at least one person I talked to said the OA used to be harder (3 problems, more algorithmic) and the behavioral section used to be a separate call. it looks like they consolidated things. the current format feels more calibrated: OA weeds out people who haven't coded in years, the phone screen and onsite do the actual signal-gathering.

overall difficulty: solidly medium. not a grind-500-leet-code process. but don't go in cold.

6 replies

newgrad_neil

the Java multiple choice section tripped up a couple people in my grad cohort who've only used Python. is it actual Java syntax questions or more like general CS concepts?

market_realist

mostly general CS wrapped in Java context. things like "what does this code snippet output" with some OOP concepts. not obscure. if you've taken a data structures class in any language you should be fine. just don't ignore it or rush through.

hardware_hugo

coming from embedded I always find it interesting how different the "online assessment" culture is in software. we just do take-home projects. the 90-minute algorithmic sprint format still seems strange to me but I guess it filters for the right things at scale.

consultant_cam

helpful breakdown. the "extend it" layer in the onsite coding round is smart design honestly. it separates people who memorized a solution from people who actually understand what they wrote.

firsttime_mgr

does the grader for the OA give partial credit or is it purely pass/fail on each test case? I've heard HackerRank setups vary a lot by company config.

market_realist

I don't know the exact config but I solved both problems fully on visible test cases. I missed one hidden test case on problem 2 and still moved on to the phone screen, so at minimum it's not 100%-or-nothing.