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Affirm·Software Engineer·Onsite - Coding / Algorithms·Intermediate

IntermediatePass
May 2026

Summary

Affirm SWE interview, part 3 of what sounds like a multi-part coding round. The problem involved fraud event recording and detection. Finished early, all tests passed, and even had time to talk through production concerns with the interviewer.

Questions Asked (1)

Q1

Implement a system to record fraudulent transaction data into a Fraud Event structure, then write logic to identify all fraud cases from that data.

System DesignAlgorithms & Data StructuresData Modeling
Author's notes

Went surprisingly clean.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Start by clarifying requirements and defining the Fraud Event schema, then design the ingestion and detection logic. Walk through the data model, storage, and algorithms for identifying fraud, emphasizing scalability and real-time processing.

Pro tip: Discuss trade-offs between rule-based and ML-based detection, and how you'd handle false positives and evolving fraud patterns. Mention idempotency and exactly-once processing to show production maturity.

1. Clarify Requirements and Scope

Ask about data volume, velocity, sources, and latency requirements. Determine if detection is real-time, batch, or both, and what constitutes a fraud case.

2. Design the Fraud Event Data Model

Define fields like event_id, timestamp, user_id, transaction_amount, merchant, location, device_info, and fraud_label. Choose a schema (e.g., Avro, Protobuf) and storage (e.g., Kafka, Cassandra) that supports fast writes and queries.

3. Implement Ingestion and Storage

Describe how to record events: use a message queue for buffering, validate and enrich data, then persist to a scalable store. Ensure idempotency and exactly-once semantics.

4. Develop Fraud Detection Logic

Outline algorithms: rule-based (velocity checks, blacklists), statistical (anomaly detection), and ML models. Explain how to identify fraud cases from stored events, possibly using batch jobs or stream processing.

5. Address Scalability, Monitoring, and Iteration

Discuss partitioning, indexing, and caching for performance. Include monitoring for false positives/negatives, feedback loops, and model retraining.

Key Points to Mention

  • Schema design with versioning and evolution
  • Idempotent ingestion and exactly-once processing
  • Real-time vs batch detection trade-offs
  • Rule-based vs ML-based fraud detection
  • Scalable storage and indexing for fast queries
  • Monitoring, alerting, and feedback loops for model improvement

AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.