Company interview guide
Zerodha interview process and practice questions
Zerodha is the Indian discount broker behind Kite, Coin, Console and the Varsity learning modules. It says it hires people with good skills who learn quickly and work well in a team, and values that over years of experience. Candidates commonly describe a less standardised process than at many firms, built around conversations about their own work, and the steps vary by team.
As candidates commonly report it; it varies by team, level and year. Last reviewed 18 October 2026.
The interview process
- 1Application through Zerodha's careers site, often with links to your work: projects, code or writing
- 2A screening conversation about your background and why Zerodha
- 3One or more technical or functional discussions, often going deep into one project you built
- 4A practical task or work sample for some roles
- 5A final conversation on fit, expectations and long-term intent, often with a senior team member
What interviewers listen for
- Good skills and the ability to learn quickly, valued over years of experience
- Being a team player who keeps learning and does what needs doing (Zerodha calls this non-negotiable)
- Being in it for the long haul, with expectations set right from the start
- Proof of real work: projects, code or writing you can show and explain
- Simple, lean solutions over elaborate ones
- Care for investors' interests and clear, honest communication
Behavioral questions
Tell me about a project you built on your own time. Why did you build it, and what did you learn?
A good answer covers
- The problem that made you start it, ideally your own or a friend's
- Key choices you made and the ones you'd now undo
- Who used it, what broke, and what it taught you
Tell me about a time you had to learn a new tool or domain quickly to get something working.
A good answer covers
- Why it was needed and how little time you had
- How you learned: docs, source code, small experiments, people you asked
- What you shipped and how well you understand it now
Describe a time you simplified a system or process instead of adding to it.
A good answer covers
- What was complicated and what it cost: time, money, errors
- What you removed or replaced, and why that was safe
- The result after the change, with a number if you have one
Tell me about a time you did work outside your job description because it needed doing.
A good answer covers
- The gap you noticed and why nobody owned it
- What you did and how you kept your own work on track
- What changed for the team or customers
Tell me about a mistake you made that affected other people. How did you handle it?
A good answer covers
- The mistake, owned plainly and early in the answer
- Who you told, how quickly, and how you limited the damage
- The habit or check you added so it doesn't happen again
Role and technical questions
At market open, orders and logins arrive in a burst within seconds. How would you design a trading backend to stay stable through it?
A good answer covers
- Separating the critical order path from everything else, such as reports and charts
- Queues, back-pressure and rate limits so a burst doesn't topple the system
- Load testing against the opening burst, and what you'd degrade first if needed
How would you stream live prices for thousands of instruments to a very large number of users at once? Talk me through your approach.
A good answer covers
- Persistent connections (such as WebSockets) and sending only subscribed instruments
- Compact message formats and throttling updates per client
- Fan-out with pub/sub, and what happens when a client is slow or reconnects
A customer says an order showed as placed in the app but never reached the exchange. How would you investigate?
A good answer covers
- Tracing the order by its ID and timestamps through each system it passed
- Checking for a gap: a timeout, a rejected request, a status shown too early
- Keeping the customer informed, and fixing the root cause, not just this order
Explain the difference between a stock and a mutual fund, and between delivery and intraday trades, to a first-time investor.
A good answer covers
- A stock is a share in one company; a fund pools money across many holdings
- Delivery means holding shares in your demat account; intraday closes the same day
- The extra risk of intraday trading, said plainly and without jargon
When would you choose a simple self-hosted tool over a managed cloud service? Give an example from your work.
A good answer covers
- Cost, control, data ownership and how well the team can run it
- The operational work self-hosting adds: upgrades, backups, monitoring
- A real example and whether you'd make the same choice again
How would you write an explainer that helps a beginner understand what a futures contract is, and its risks?
A good answer covers
- Starting from an everyday example before any jargon
- Leverage and margin explained with a simple worked example
- Being honest about losses and who the product isn't suited for
A new regulatory rule means a feature must change within weeks. How would you plan the work and tell customers?
A good answer covers
- Reading the rule closely and agreeing what exactly must change
- A plan with a buffer, testing, and a fallback if the date is at risk
- Telling customers early, in plain words, what changes for them
Why Zerodha? Fit and HR questions
Why Zerodha, and what do you see yourself working on here over the long term?
A good answer covers
- A reason tied to its products or way of working, not just the brand
- What you'd like to own over several years
- Expectations you're setting honestly: learning, responsibility, pace
Zerodha says it has no conventional titles or career ladder. How do you think about growth in a place like that?
A good answer covers
- Growth as more responsibility and harder problems, not a new title
- How you'd measure your own progress
- An example of growing in a role without a promotion
Which part of Kite, Coin, Console or Varsity have you used, and what would you improve?
A good answer covers
- Specific use: what you did with it and when
- One concrete improvement and who it would help
- What you'd leave out to keep the product simple
Tips
- Bring proof of work: a repository, a deployed project, a write-up or an article you can walk through in detail.
- Use Kite, Coin and Console before the interview, and read a few Varsity modules if you're applying for a non-tech role.
- Expect depth over breadth: be ready to explain every decision in one project, including what you'd remove.
- Zerodha's tech blog writes openly about how it builds; reading a few posts gives you good questions to ask.
- Be clear about why you want to stay long term; Zerodha says it hires people who are in it for the long haul.
Practise it out loud
A mock interview asks the way Zerodha's interviewers are known to, follows up on your answers and gives you a report. The warm-up is free, needs no account and checks five of these questions as you answer.
About this guide
Written by Orbit from Zerodha's own public pages and what candidates commonly report. Orbit isn't affiliated with Zerodha. The questions are practice questions in the style of its interviews, not questions taken from them. Processes change, so check the job post and what your recruiter tells you.