1. What is a Software Engineer?

At Brex, a Software Engineer is not just a coder; you are a builder of the financial operating system for the next generation of businesses. Whether you are focusing on Product, Full-Stack, or Internal Systems, your work directly empowers tens of thousands of companies—from high-growth startups to massive enterprises like DoorDash and Flexport—to spend with confidence. You are joining an environment where engineering is treated as a craft, and where builders are expected to be leaders who own their outcomes from architecture to deployment.

You will tackle complex technical challenges involving high-scale distributed systems, financial data integrity, and intuitive user experiences. The role requires you to balance speed with intention, building systems that are robust enough to handle global payments yet flexible enough to adapt to rapid market changes. You will work with high autonomy, often collaborating directly with product managers, designers, and data scientists to launch features that drive direct business impact.

Ultimately, this role is about pushing the frontier of financial software. You will be expected to challenge the status quo, leverage data to make decisions, and help Brex scale into new markets. If you thrive in ambiguous environments where you can shape the technical vision and see your code move money and solve real-world problems, this is the environment for you.

2. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for an interview at Brex requires more than just memorizing algorithms; you need to demonstrate a pragmatic engineering mindset. The team looks for engineers who can write clean, maintainable code and design systems that survive the rigors of the financial world.

Technical Proficiency & Craftsmanship – You must demonstrate fluency in your chosen language (often Kotlin, Java, Go, or TypeScript at Brex) and an ability to write production-quality code during the interview. Interviewers look for proper variable naming, modularity, and handling of edge cases—critical in a FinTech environment where precision is non-negotiable.

System Design & Scalability – You will be evaluated on your ability to build systems that scale. This means understanding distributed systems concepts, database schema design, and API consistency. You should be able to discuss trade-offs between consistency and availability, especially in the context of financial transactions and ledgering.

Ownership & Autonomy – Brex values engineers who act as owners. You will be assessed on your ability to take a vague problem, structure it, and drive it to a solution without needing hand-holding. Interviewers want to see how you prioritize work and how you handle "moving pieces" in a complex project.

Culture & Collaboration – You will face questions determining if you can collaborate effectively in a high-trust, high-autonomy environment. This includes how you give and receive feedback, how you mentor junior engineers, and how you navigate disagreements to reach the best technical outcome.

3. Interview Process Overview

The interview process at Brex is designed to be practical and reflective of the actual work you will do. It typically begins with a Recruiter Screen to align on your background and interests, followed by a Technical Screen. This initial technical round is often a practical coding exercise—sometimes involving an existing codebase or a realistic API task—rather than a purely abstract algorithmic puzzle. This approach filters for engineers who can "hit the ground running."

If you pass the screen, you will move to the Virtual Onsite, which generally consists of 3 to 4 rounds. These rounds are split between deep technical assessments (System Design and Practical Coding) and behavioral interviews (often called "Values" or "collaboration" rounds). The pace is rigorous, and the interviewers are usually senior engineers or hiring managers who value clarity of thought and communication. Brex emphasizes a "hybrid" culture, so expect questions about how you manage communication in distributed teams.

The timeline above illustrates the standard flow. Note that the Practical Coding round is distinct because it often requires you to run code in an IDE rather than writing pseudocode on a whiteboard. Use this visual to plan your practice schedule, ensuring you allocate time for both hands-on coding environments and high-level architectural diagramming.

4. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Your evaluation will center on your ability to deliver high-quality software that solves business problems. Based on candidate reports and the engineering culture at Brex, you should prepare for the following specific areas.

Practical Coding and Debugging

Unlike many companies that focus solely on dynamic programming puzzles, Brex often tests your ability to write working code that interacts with data or APIs. You may be asked to implement a feature within a small framework or parse complex data structures.

Be ready to go over:

• Data Structure Manipulation – efficiently sorting, filtering, and transforming JSON-like data.
• Object-Oriented Design – creating classes and interfaces that model a real-world problem (e.g., a card transaction system).
• Code Readability – writing code that another engineer could maintain immediately.
• Advanced concepts – Concurrency control and thread safety (vital for backend roles handling transactions).

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Implement a rate limiter that allows x requests per minute per user."
• "Given a stream of transaction data, aggregate the spending by category and return the top merchants."
• "Refactor this piece of code to handle error states and improve performance."

System Design and Architecture

For Senior and Staff roles, this is the most critical round. You will be asked to design a system relevant to Brex’s domain, such as a payment gateway, an expense tracking dashboard, or a notification service.

Be ready to go over:

• API Design – RESTful principles, idempotency (crucial for payments), and pagination.
• Database Modeling – choosing between SQL vs. NoSQL, designing schemas for financial ledgers, and ensuring ACID properties.
• Scalability – caching strategies (Redis), load balancing, and asynchronous processing (Kafka/Queues).
• Advanced concepts – Distributed locking, eventual consistency vs. strong consistency in financial ledgers.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design a system to generate monthly expense reports for millions of users."
• "How would you architect a real-time fraud detection system for credit card swipes?"
• "Design an API for a corporate card issuance platform."

Behavioral and Values Alignment

This round assesses your fit with Brex’s culture of "Dream Big" and "Ownership." Interviewers want to see that you are data-driven and can push through ambiguity.

Be ready to go over:

• Conflict Resolution – resolving technical disagreements with Product Managers or other engineers.
• Project Leadership – leading a project from concept to launch with minimal supervision.
• Mistakes and Learning – a time you failed, how you fixed it, and what you learned.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you challenged the status quo to improve a process."
• "Describe a situation where you had to make a technical tradeoff to meet a deadline."
• "How do you handle a situation where requirements change halfway through a project?"

The word cloud above highlights the frequency of terms found in Brex interview discussions. Notice the prominence of terms like "Design," "API," "Data," and "Scalability." This indicates that while coding is required, the ability to discuss the structure and flow of data is heavily weighted.

5. Key Responsibilities

As a Software Engineer at Brex, your day-to-day work is highly collaborative and product-focused. You will be responsible for the full lifecycle of software development. This means you are not just handed a spec; you often work with Product Managers to define the requirements, design the architecture, implement the solution, and monitor it in production.

You will build and integrate internal tooling infrastructure or customer-facing products, depending on your specific team (e.g., Users, Corporate Engineering, or Product). A significant part of the role involves integrating with external data sources, SaaS tools, and HRIS systems to ensure seamless onboarding and management for enterprise clients. You will also be expected to write automated tests and maintain the CI/CD pipelines for your services, ensuring that deployments are safe and frequent.

Beyond coding, you will act as a subject matter expert for the systems you own. This includes providing Tier 3 support when critical issues arise and building tools that allow internal teams to be self-sufficient. You will use data to drive your decisions, constantly looking for ways to optimize performance and reduce latency in the Brex platform.

6. Role Requirements & Qualifications

To succeed in this process, you need to show a blend of technical depth and product intuition.

• Technical Skills – Proficiency in a modern backend language is essential; Kotlin, Java, or Go are highly relevant for backend roles, while TypeScript/React is standard for Full-Stack. Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL) and cloud infrastructure (AWS) is expected.
• Experience Level – For Senior roles, you generally need 5+ years of experience shipping production code. You should have a track record of working on complex distributed systems or high-traffic web applications.
• Soft Skills – Communication is paramount. You must be able to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders. A "growth mindset" and the ability to work autonomously in a remote/hybrid environment are critical.
• Must-have Skills – Strong grasp of computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms), experience with API design, and a history of ownership over technical projects.
• Nice-to-have Skills – Experience in FinTech, payments, or security. Knowledge of functional programming concepts or experience building internal developer tools.

7. Common Interview Questions

The following questions are representative of the Brex interview style. They focus on practical application rather than abstract theory. While you won't see these exact questions, they represent the types of challenges you will face.

Practical Coding & Algorithms

This category tests your ability to translate logic into working code efficiently.

• Given a list of credit card transactions, return the merchants with the highest number of declined transactions within a time window.
• Implement a simplified version of a key-value store with support for transactions (commit/rollback).
• Parse a complex nested JSON object representing an org chart and return all employees under a specific manager.
• Write a function to validate if a string of parentheses and brackets is balanced (a classic, but often with a twist regarding custom rules).
• Find the "k" most frequent words in a large stream of text logs.

System Design

These questions test your ability to architect scalable solutions.

• Design a system that sends real-time push notifications to users when a transaction occurs.
• How would you build a URL shortener that needs to scale to millions of writes per day?
• Design the database schema and API for a bill-splitting feature within the Brex dashboard.
• Architect a system to ingest and reconcile banking feeds from multiple external providers.

Behavioral & Culture

These questions assess your alignment with Brex's values.

• Tell me about a time you saw a problem in the engineering process and took the initiative to fix it.
• Describe a time you disagreed with a product manager about a feature's feasibility. What was the outcome?
• How do you prioritize technical debt against new feature development?
• Tell me about a complex technical concept you had to explain to a non-technical stakeholder.

These questions are based on real interview experiences from candidates who interviewed at this company. You can practice answering them interactively on Dataford to better prepare for your interview.

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the coding interview compared to other tech giants? The difficulty is comparable to top-tier tech companies, but the focus is different. Brex leans less on dynamic programming brain-teasers and more on practical, clean code that handles data structures and APIs correctly. You need to write code that compiles and runs.

Q: What programming languages can I use? You can typically use any major language (Python, Java, C++, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go). However, since Brex uses Kotlin and TypeScript heavily, using a strongly typed language can sometimes be advantageous for the system design and practical coding portions.

Q: Is financial domain knowledge required? No, prior FinTech experience is not a strict requirement for most software engineering roles. However, you must demonstrate an appreciation for data correctness, consistency, and security—traits that are vital in the financial sector.

Q: What is the remote work policy? Brex operates in a "remote-first" but hybrid model. As noted in the job postings, roles may be based in hubs like Seattle, San Francisco, or New York, or fully remote. You should be prepared to discuss your ability to collaborate effectively across time zones.

Q: How long does the process take? The process is generally efficient. From the initial recruiter screen to the final offer, it typically takes 3 to 5 weeks. The team is known for moving with "speed and intention," so be prepared for quick feedback loops.

9. Other General Tips

• Think in "Resources": When designing APIs during the interview, think in terms of RESTful resources. Brex’s products are heavily API-driven. Clear resource naming and hierarchy will score points.
• Clarify Requirements Early: In the practical coding round, do not jump straight to coding. Ask about input sizes, edge cases (e.g., negative transaction amounts), and expected output formats. This mimics the real-world job of clarifying product specs.
• Focus on Idempotency:

• Prepare Your IDE: If you are doing a remote coding round, ensure your local environment is set up if they allow it, or be very comfortable with online editors like CoderPad. You want to spend your time solving the problem, not fighting syntax highlighting.
• Demonstrate "Builder" Mentality: Brex loves "builders." When answering behavioral questions, focus on what you built, your specific contribution, and the impact it had on the business, rather than using passive language.

10. Summary & Next Steps

The Software Engineer role at Brex is a premier opportunity to work on high-scale systems that power the financial operations of the world's most innovative companies. By joining the team, you are stepping into a culture that values autonomy, technical excellence, and the ability to solve hard problems with speed. The interview process is rigorous but fair, designed to identify engineers who are not just skilled coders but also thoughtful architects and collaborative owners.

To succeed, focus your preparation on practical coding (data manipulation, clean code), system design (scalability, consistency), and behavioral examples that showcase your leadership and ownership. Review the basics of distributed systems and practice writing code that is production-ready, not just algorithmically correct.

The salary data above provides a baseline for the role. Note that compensation at Brex is competitive and often includes significant equity components, reflecting the company's growth trajectory. Use this range to inform your expectations, but remember that total compensation will vary based on your specific level (Senior, Staff, etc.) and location.

You have the potential to make a significant impact here. Approach the interview with confidence, clarity, and a readiness to build. Good luck!