FPGA Engineer Intern (Summer 2027 - Chicago)
Posted Oct 2, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026
Likely interview questions for this role
Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.
About your past
Tell me about an FPGA or digital design project you have built. What was the hardest bug you found?
What they are checking: Whether they have real hands-on hardware experience and can debug methodically when simulation and reality disagree.
Why are you interested in hardware for trading rather than hardware for other industries?
What they are checking: Whether they understand why latency matters in markets and are genuinely motivated by that kind of problem.
Tell me about a time you worked closely with people from a different discipline, like software or business.
What they are checking: Whether they can communicate with traders and software engineers, which full-time FPGA engineers do every day.
What would you do
You are stuck on a problem for a day and your mentor is busy. What do you do?
What they are checking: Whether they try hard on their own first and then ask good, specific questions instead of waiting silently.
About the work
What is the difference between blocking and non-blocking assignments in Verilog, and why does it matter?
What they are checking: Whether they understand how their code turns into hardware, which prevents subtle timing and logic bugs.
Walk me through what happens when a design fails timing. How do you fix it?
What they are checking: Whether they understand critical paths and fixes like pipelining, which matter in nanosecond-sensitive trading hardware.
How would you safely move a signal between two clock domains?
What they are checking: Whether they know clock domain crossing techniques like synchronizers and async FIFOs that prevent rare, hard-to-find failures.
If you had to parse a network packet in hardware as fast as possible, how would you approach it?
What they are checking: Whether they can think about low-level networking and parallel processing, which this team does to cut response times.
How would you verify that your design works before putting it on real hardware?
What they are checking: Whether they take verification seriously with testbenches and edge cases, since trading hardware has little room for failure.
Here is a quick puzzle: you have a stream of numbers arriving every clock cycle and need the running maximum of the last eight. How would you build it in hardware?
What they are checking: Whether they can think in parallel hardware structures under time pressure, the way Optiver interviews often probe.
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As published by Optiver.