A Software Engineer at FTI Consulting operates at the intersection of advanced technology, data analytics, and corporate strategy. Unlike traditional technology firms where engineering teams focus solely on consumer-facing products, engineers at FTI Consulting build, optimize, and maintain highly specialized applications used to solve complex, high-stakes business challenges. These challenges include forensic investigations, e-discovery, corporate restructuring, regulatory compliance, and economic modeling.

The impact of this role is immediate and profound. The proprietary software and data pipelines you develop will be used by consultants and clients to make sense of massive, unstructured datasets during critical legal disputes or financial crises. Whether you are working within the Technology segment, Forensic Litigation Consulting, or Corporate Finance, your work directly enables the firm to deliver defensible, data-driven insights to global corporations and law firms.

This environment requires a unique blend of technical excellence and business acumen. You will not just write code in a silo; you will design scalable architectures, optimize data processing engines, and collaborate directly with domain experts. For a Software Engineer, this translates to a highly stimulating career path characterized by diverse projects, rapid problem-solving, and the opportunity to see your technical solutions directly influence real-world corporate outcomes.

Preparing for the interview requires understanding the types of questions typically asked across the different stages of the FTI Consulting hiring process. These questions are drawn from real candidate experiences and are designed to assess your technical foundations, logical reasoning, and cultural alignment with the firm’s consulting-driven environment.

Pre-Recorded & Behavioral Screening

These questions are typically encountered during the initial pre-recorded video interview (such as HireVue) or the preliminary HR phone conversation. They focus on your background, motivations, and basic professional alignment.

• Why are you interested in joining FTI Consulting, and how does your background align with our technology practice?
• Describe a challenging technical project you worked on. What was your role, and how did you overcome the primary obstacle?

Successfully interviewing for a Software Engineer position at FTI Consulting requires a balanced preparation strategy. You must demonstrate both technical capability and the consultative soft skills necessary to thrive in a professional services environment.

Technical Conceptual Mastery – Rather than memorizing highly specific algorithmic puzzles, focus on explaining core software engineering principles clearly. You should be ready to discuss system design, database optimization, API development, and the pros and cons of different architectural patterns. Interviewers evaluate your ability to think like an architect and articulate your technical decisions.

Logical & Quantitative Aptitude – Because FTI Consulting deals with complex data investigations, you may be tested on your logical reasoning, mathematics, or statistics. Brush up on data structures, basic statistical concepts, and logical puzzle-solving. Practice structuring your thoughts out loud so the interviewer can follow your analytical process.

Behavioral & Consulting Mindset – As an engineer in a consulting firm, you must be highly collaborative, adaptable, and communicative. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your behavioral answers. Emphasize how you handle ambiguity, work under tight deadlines, and collaborate with cross-functional teams.

The interview process for a Software Engineer at FTI Consulting is designed to evaluate both your technical capabilities and your cultural fit over several distinct stages. While the process is structured, candidates should note that the exact flow can vary slightly depending on the specific office, team, and seniority of the role.

The journey typically begins with an application review, followed by an initial screening phase. This screening often includes a pre-recorded video interview where you will have a limited amount of time to record answers to behavioral and introductory questions. Some offices or specialized units may also introduce a written logical and quantitative test at this early stage to filter for analytical problem-solving skills.

If you pass the initial screens, you will move on to live interviews. This phase usually starts with an HR phone screen and a behavioral interview with a hiring manager or a developer from the team. The process often culminates in a "Superday" or a series of final-round interviews. This final stage is comprehensive, featuring a mix of conceptual technical evaluations, fit interviews, and informal conversations designed to ensure a mutual match.

The visual timeline above outlines the typical progression a candidate experiences from the initial application to the final offer. It highlights the transition from automated, asynchronous screening phases to highly interactive live interviews. Candidates should use this timeline to budget their preparation time, ensuring they focus on both technical concepts and behavioral storytelling at the appropriate stages.

To excel in the FTI Consulting interview process, you must understand the specific competencies your interviewers are looking for. The evaluation is structured around three primary pillars.

Conceptual Technical Knowledge

This area evaluates your understanding of fundamental computer science concepts and your ability to apply them to real-world engineering challenges. Interviewers want to see that you understand the "why" behind your technical choices, not just the "how."

Be ready to go over:

• System Architecture – Designing scalable, fault-tolerant systems and understanding microservices versus monolithic architectures.
• Database Management – Schema design, query optimization, indexing, and choosing between SQL and NoSQL databases for specific workloads.
• Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) – Version control, CI/CD pipelines, testing methodologies, and agile practices.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Cloud security models, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and data warehousing solutions.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How would you design a data ingestion pipeline that can process millions of transactions daily while ensuring data integrity?"
• "Explain how you would diagnose and resolve a performance bottleneck in a web application's database layer."

Quantitative & Analytical Reasoning

Especially common in specialized engineering teams at FTI Consulting, this area tests your mathematical, statistical, and logical problem-solving abilities. The firm values engineers who can approach data-heavy problems with scientific rigor.

Be ready to go over:

• Logical Puzzles – Solving structured logic, math, or physics-based questions to demonstrate analytical structured thinking.
• Data Analysis Foundations – Basic statistics, probability, and understanding how to manipulate and clean messy datasets.
• Algorithmic Efficiency – Evaluating the time and space complexity (Big O notation) of different problem-solving approaches.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "A written test involving logic patterns, mathematical sequences, and basic statistical reasoning."
• "How would you write an algorithm to identify anomalous user behavior within a system log dataset?"