If you’re looking to launch your career at one of the fastest growing fintech companies in Silicon Valley, mastering the Brex interview process is key.
Founded in 2017, [Company] has skyrocketed to a multi-billion dollar valuation by bringing innovation to financial services for businesses. But with their meteoric growth, competition for jobs is fierce.
This comprehensive guide will walk you through what to expect across the different rounds of Brex interviews, from phone screens to onsite panels. With insight into the company’s culture, popular interview questions, and tips to stand out, you’ll be fully equipped to ace your Brex interview and join this elite team.
Overview of the Brex Hiring Process
The Brex interview process typically consists of:
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Initial Phone Screen – 30 minutes focused on basic qualifications
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Technical Phone Interview – 1 hour of coding questions and high-level architecture discussion
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Take Home Assignment – 4-8 hour coding project simulating real work
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Onsite Interview – 4-5 sessions covering your experience, system design, coding, and cross-functional collaboration
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VP Interviews – Final talks with senior leadership to assess culture fit
While each role varies slightly, most candidates can expect 4-6 rounds combining technical proficiency and soft skills. Devoting time to prepare is key.
What Brex Looks For in Candidates
As an innovative fintech disruptor, [Company] seeks candidates that are:
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Technically Strong – You need to demonstrate proficiency in languages like React, Python, and SQL through questions and coding challenges.
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Quick Learners – With new products launching rapidly, you must be adaptable and fast at picking up new tech.
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Problem Solvers – Analytical skills and creativity in tackling complex engineering problems is valued.
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Team Players – Collaboration is central so you must work well cross-functionally.
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Product Focused – You should think critically about user needs and craft solutions to meet them.
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Passionate – They hire people truly excited about their mission of reinventing financial services.
Understanding these core competencies will help you craft responses tailored to Brex’s needs and culture.
10 Common Brex Interview Questions
Let’s look at some of the most frequently asked Brex interview questions and how to nail your answers:
1. Why do you want to work at Brex specifically?
This is your chance to show passion for their mission. Research the latest products and technologies they are using and explain how those align with your skills and interests. Explain why you connect with their vision of improving financial services for businesses.
2. Tell me about a time you faced a technical challenge. How did you approach and overcome it?
Use a real example that highlights analytical abilities, technical expertise, and perseverance. Clearly explain the problem, steps you took, skills applied, and the positive outcome.
3. How would you design an ATM system?
For system design questions, clearly outline core components and relationships, tradeoffs made, and simplifying assumptions. Discuss scalability, security, redundancy, and how you optimized for key user needs.
4. How would you go about improving the performance of a React application?
Demonstrate your depth of knowledge here. You may discuss solutions like avoiding unnecessary re-renders, using React.memo for component caching, lazy loading, and leveraging asynchronous rendering. Discuss tradeoffs involved.
5. What do you look for when reviewing someone’s code?
This tests your understanding of what makes code maintainable, robust, and scalable. Mention things like clean structure, comments, modularity, efficiency, handling edge cases, and proper testing.
6. You notice another engineer struggling to diagnose a bug you are familiar with. How would you assist them without taking over?
Show you can collaborate effectively. Discuss asking clarifying questions, directing them to documentation, and providing guiding tips to put them on the right path without solving it directly.
7. How would you go about estimating a complex technical project with lots of unknowns?
Prove you can break down projects methodically to provide accurate estimates despite uncertainty. Share techniques like system decomposition, allocating padding time for risks, leaning on past experience, prototyping, and regularly reassessing timelines.
8. Tell me about a product or feature you designed and why you made certain choices.
Use a robust example that demonstrates strong product intuition. Discuss researching user needs, formulating requirements accordingly, weighing engineering tradeoffs, and iterating based on testing and feedback.
9. Imagine you disagree with your manager about a technical decision. How would you handle this?
Show you can challenge respectfully while maintaining healthy collaboration. Discuss asking insightful questions, providing data to back your perspective, being open to compromise, and committing fully once a decision is made.
10. Where do you see your career in 5 years?
Share your long-term goals and aspirations that align with growing your skills and responsibilities. Tie it back to how this role and learning from mentors at Brex can help you work toward that vision.
Preparing responses using real examples and showcasing both technical and soft skills will prove you have what it takes to join Brex’s world-class engineering team.
Mastering Brex’s Technical Interview
Brex’s rigorous technical interview requires strong engineering fundamentals and problem-solving abilities. Here are some tips for acing the technical aspects:
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Review computer science basics -Brush up on data structures, algorithms, design patterns and architectures. Expect questions testing these foundations.
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Practice on platforms like LeetCode – Work through problems similar to what you’ll face. Time yourself to simulate interview pressure.
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Clarify requirements before coding – Ask detailed questions to scope the problem completely before starting.
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Think through test cases – Identify edge cases and validate your solutions thoroughly. Communicate this process.
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Explain your approach – Be vocal about your design choices and tradeoffs. This is valuable insights for the interviewer.
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Code neatly and compile often – Write clean, well-commented code. Check for errors frequently to avoid getting derailed by small mistakes.
With rigorous preparation, you can tackle even the toughest technical questions with confidence.
Setting Yourself Apart from Other Candidates
You’ll likely be competing with many qualified candidates for a limited number of spots. Here are some tips for differentiating yourself:
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Show passion for the company – Learn about Brex’s origin story and latest product launches. Discuss how their mission motivates you.
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Ask thoughtful questions – Inquiries about their technical stack, workplace culture, and engineering challenges demonstrate genuine interest.
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Highlight transferable skills – Even if your background doesn’t match the role exactly, emphasize adaptability and willingness to learn.
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Do excellent work on take-home assignments – Treat it as a real project and deliver exceptionally clean, well-tested code.
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Send thank you notes – Follow up with each person you interact with thanking them and reiterating your fit.
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Check for updates tactfully – It’s okay to follow up if you don’t hear back in the stated time frame. Be gracious.
Going above and beyond to show them you’re a strong candidate worth hiring for the long-term can help seal the deal.
Are You Ready to Join Brex?
With an innovative approach to business financial services and some of the top engineering talent in Silicon Valley, Brex offers an exciting opportunity to make an impact while accelerating your career.
Preparing extensively for the demanding interview process is the key to landing your dream job here. Understand what abilities and attributes they are assessing for. Sharpen your technical skills. Craft compelling stories that convey aligned values and mindsets.
Sell them not just on what you’ve already achieved, but on your potential to continue contributing as they rapidly scale new fintech products and services.
Turn the Brex interview into a focused, comprehensive showcase of why you are the right candidate to join them on their mission of revolutionizing financial services for businesses. With diligent effort and authentic self-presentation, you can develop polished, thoughtful responses that land you the job. Soon you’ll be on your way to an amazing career as part of one of the most dynamic engineering teams in Silicon Valley. Best of luck with your Brex interview!
Get to know your candidate
- Walk me through your month-end close process.
- How many days do you want the books to be closed by?
- What would you accomplish on each of those days?
- What is a check or action you would take to make sure you’re not moving too quickly and losing accuracy?
- What do you like best and least about accounting?
- Tell me about a time you saved money for a boss. What was the result?.
- What will be the most important thing to you every day in this particular job?
- Tell me about a system you implemented (other than NetSuite). What was the impact?.
- Describe a mistake you made while putting a tool to use. What did you learn from it?
- Have you ever set up controls for financial reporting? If so, please describe an example of a control you created and put into place.
- What governance would you put in place around cash?
- Do you have any experience with audits? Please elaborate.
- Which part of the P do you think hosting costs (AWS, GCP, Azure) belong in?
- How healthy is a company? If you could only look at one financial statement, which one would it be and what would you look for?
- What do you include within Working Capital?
- What is the difference between Accounts Receivable and Deferred Revenue?
- Tell me about your current order-to-cash reconciliation process.
- What did you do to fix the problem while keeping the relationship with the vendor strong when you had to deal with late payments in the past?
- How do you calculate Free Cash Flow?
- How does revenue recognition differ for monthly SaaS sales vs. GMV (gross merchandise value) sales through a marketplace platform vs. professional services?.
- What happens to cash that is collected from customers but hasn’t yet been recorded as income?
- When do you capitalize rather than expense a purchase?
- Under what circumstances does goodwill increase?
- What overhead expenses would you suggest we allocate between departments?
- Who would be the first person you hire, and what would they do every day to help you?
- When did your accounting team do something great instead of getting in the way?
- Tell me about the most important KPIs you kept an eye on and how you used them to make decisions.
- What did your old CFO do at night that you solved?
- Rank how comfortable or knowledgeable you are with technical accounting, operational accounting, reporting on financial statements, payroll, taxes, and treasury.
- If you can pay for something with a wire, an ACH, or a business credit card, which would you choose?
- Have you worked with company equity plans before? What would happen to the financial statements if an ESOP (Employee Stock Option Plan) was increased?
- What creates an FX gain or loss?
- Have you ever had to figure out your US or international sales tax obligations?
- You are told by the CEO that we are launching a new product or going into a new country. What do you do?
- How do you think about materiality and risk?
- What are some ways that management accounting and GAAP accounting are different?
- What spend management systems have you used in the past? Which parts of your work were able to be done automatically because you used a system?
- Have you ever used employee spend management programs? If so, how did you decide who could book what?
- Here is a picture of our current P What would you change? How could we make it better? Give at least 5 suggestions [NOTE: include a copy of your QuickBooks or NetSuite export with fake numbers].
Brex Interview with Gmail Creator Paul Buchheit
FAQ
What is the best answer for “Tell me about yourself”?
