Revolut, headquartered in London, runs a financial app that covers accounts, cards, currency exchange, trading and business banking across many countries. Its engineering hiring has a reputation for pace and for a larger amount of hands-on work than most: candidates commonly describe a timed online test, a take-home project and a review of that project, on top of the usual coding and culture rounds. This page covers what Revolut builds and who it hires, the process candidates commonly report, the technical depth the teams care about, representative problem types, what interviewers score, and a three-week prep plan.
What Revolut builds and who it hires
Revolut's back-end teams work mainly on the JVM: its job posts ask for Java, with Kotlin also in use, alongside PostgreSQL, Kubernetes and Google Cloud. Postings for the core platform team mention an in-house event store, and several describe a preference for a minimal set of external frameworks, so expect interviewers to care about how you would build something yourself rather than which library you would reach for. Teams cover core banking, payments, cards, credit, financial-crime prevention, trading and the mobile apps.
- Back-end engineers (Java): core banking, payments, credit and financial-crime services.
- Mobile engineers: the Android and iOS apps, in Kotlin and Swift.
- Front-end engineers: web apps and internal tools, commonly in React and TypeScript.
- Platform engineers: the shared infrastructure, data stores and developer tooling.
What the process tends to look like
| Stage | What happens | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiter call | Role, team, level and timeline | Know the product and the team's area |
| Technical screen | A timed online test, often on HackerRank, with algorithm problems and sometimes SQL or a short logic or maths section | Practical coding in your interview language, explained aloud |
| Take-home project | Not given to everyone, but common: a small service such as a simple banking or currency-exchange API, which candidates report taking several hours | Clean structure, tests, a short README on your decisions and trade-offs |
| Project review | A call of roughly an hour with an engineer who walks through your submission and asks you to extend or defend it | Know every line you wrote and what you would change with more time |
| Final loop | Live coding, a system design conversation, and a culture or bar-raiser style round that probes ownership and pace | One design in the company's domain and two strong behavioral stories |
Processes differ by team, level and office and change over time, so treat this as the common shape candidates report and confirm the specifics with your recruiter.
What the take-home and review test
The take-home is judged like production code. Candidates who pass describe submitting something small but finished: clear package structure, input validation, tests for the money paths and a README that explains what was left out. A sprawling half-finished project usually does worse than a narrow, complete one.
Concurrency around money. A banking-style API raises the obvious follow-up: what happens when two transfers hit the same account at once? Be ready to discuss locking, optimistic concurrency, transactions and why balances should never be updated without a guard.
SQL and data modelling. Several reports mention SQL in the online test or in later rounds. Practise joins, grouping and window functions, and be able to design tables for accounts, transactions and currency rates.
Pace. Revolut's culture is widely described in terms of speed and ownership, and candidates report that interviewers notice how quickly you move from a vague task to a working first version. Say what you would ship first and what you would harden next.
Representative problem types
These are the kinds of problems candidates describe, not a leaked question list. Practice the category, not the exact question.
- Build a small REST API for transfers between accounts, with validation and tests.
- Make a balance update safe when two requests arrive at the same time.
- Convert amounts between currencies with correct rounding.
- Write SQL to find each user's largest transaction per month.
- Design a rate limiter for a public API.
- Implement a simple in-memory key-value store with expiry.
- Medium array, hash map and graph problems under a time limit.
What interviewers score
- Working code: a solution that runs, handles edge cases and is readable by the next engineer.
- Practical judgment: the trade-offs you name and the simplest design that meets the requirement.
- Product sense: understanding who the user is and what failure looks like for them.
- Ownership: examples where you shipped, measured and fixed things yourself.
The behavioral side
Technical rounds decide most outcomes, but every Revolut loop also asks about how you work. Prepare a short story for each of these, with a result and what you learned:
- Something you shipped end to end. Cover the user problem, your decisions, what you measured and what you would change.
- A disagreement with a teammate. Show how you made the decision on evidence and kept the relationship.
- Why this company? Connect its product and engineering problems to the work you want to do next.
Structures and sample answers for the common questions are in our software engineer behavioral answers guide.
A three-week prep plan
- Week 1: practical coding: build small features against an API, parse and transform data, and write tests, in the language you will interview in.
- Week 2: system design for the company's domain, plus two behavioral stories about shipping and fixing something under pressure.
- Week 3: timed mixed problems, a mock interview every other day, and research into the product and its engineering blog.
For practice lists, use LeetCode company-tagged questions; compare the European style of Booking.com and Spotify; and for design rounds, read system design building blocks.
Where CoPilot Interview fits
Most of a Revolut loop is spoken: you explain an approach, defend a trade-off and talk through your past work. CoPilot Interview is an AI interview assistant whose free AI mock interview builds technical and behavioral questions from your résumé and the job description, reads them aloud and scores each spoken answer out of ten, so you can rehearse the explanation as well as the code. The free plan gives 15 minutes a day of live help in sessions of up to 15 minutes, with AI mock interviews included. Online assessments and many coding rounds forbid outside help, so practice beforehand and follow your employer's rules on the day.
Disclosure: CoPilot Interview is our product, so weigh what we say about it accordingly.
Frequently asked questions
What programming language should I use in a Revolut interview?
Java is the most common choice for back-end roles and matches the team's stack; Kotlin is usually welcome. Mobile roles expect Kotlin or Swift. If the online test lets you choose, use your fastest language.
Does Revolut send an online assessment?
Candidates commonly report a timed online test early in the process, often on HackerRank, followed for many back-end roles by a take-home project. Whether you get both depends on role, level and year, so ask your recruiter.
How long is the Revolut take-home assignment?
Reports vary. Candidates commonly describe a project that took several hours of real work, with a deadline of up to about a week, followed by a review call. Ask the recruiter for the expected scope and time box, keep the solution focused, and document what you deliberately left out rather than trying to build everything.
How should I prepare for Revolut coding questions?
Practice practical problems under time limits, build small features against an API in your interview language, and prepare one system design in Revolut's domain. Explain every solution out loud, because follow-up questions about trade-offs matter as much as the first answer.
Can I use AI tools in a Revolut interview?
Only if the instructions you receive say so. Online assessments and live coding rounds generally forbid outside help, and some companies now state their AI policy in the invitation. Use AI to practice beforehand, and follow your employer's rules.
Practice this interview before the real one
The AI mock interview builds questions from your resume and the job description, reads them aloud and scores each spoken answer out of 10. Included on the free plan.
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