Software Engineer Interview Prep Guide
Master your software engineer interview with real coding questions from Google, Meta, and Amazon, system design strategies for 100M+ user systems, and behavioral frameworks used by FAANG interviewers.
Last Updated: 2026-02-11 | Reading Time: 10-12 minutes
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Interview Types
Key Skills to Demonstrate
Top Software Engineer Interview Questions
Design a video streaming service like YouTube that supports upload, transcoding, and playback at multiple quality levels for millions of concurrent users.
Start by clarifying functional requirements (upload, transcode, stream, search) and non-functional requirements (99.99% uptime, less than 2s startup latency). Cover blob storage for videos, a CDN for global delivery, transcoding pipeline with message queues, metadata service with search indexing, and adaptive bitrate streaming. Discuss tradeoffs between pre-transcoding all qualities vs on-demand transcoding.
Given an integer array, return an array where each element is the product of all other elements except the one at that index, without using division.
This is a classic Meta coding question. Use prefix and suffix product arrays for O(n) time and O(1) extra space (reusing the output array). Walk through the approach before coding: first pass builds left products, second pass multiplies by right products. Test with edge cases: arrays containing zeros, single element, negative numbers.
You are working with an AI assistant in a CoderPad environment. Extend an existing codebase to add a new feature involving graph traversal and data transformation across approximately 120 lines of code.
This reflects Meta new AI-assisted coding round introduced in late 2025. You get a real-world codebase, not isolated LeetCode problems. Focus on reading and understanding existing code first, use the AI for boilerplate but verify every line it generates, and demonstrate you can debug AI-generated code. The evaluation has shifted from writing speed to verification and code review skills.
Tell me about a time you had to make a critical architectural decision under time pressure. What tradeoffs did you evaluate?
Senior candidates at FAANG frequently fail this by speaking in generalities. Be specific: name the technologies, the scale numbers, the alternatives you evaluated, and the business outcome. For example, describe choosing between a synchronous vs event-driven architecture for a payments system, the latency vs consistency tradeoff, and how you measured success after deployment.
Implement an LRU cache with O(1) get and put operations, then extend it to support TTL (time-to-live) for entries.
Use a hashmap plus doubly-linked list for the base LRU. For the TTL extension, add a timestamp field to each node and either use lazy expiration (check on access) or active expiration (background cleanup). This two-part structure is common at Google and Amazon where they test your ability to extend a working solution.
Design a notification system that delivers push notifications, emails, and SMS to 100 million users with at-least-once delivery guarantees.
Cover the high-level flow: API gateway receives notification request, fan-out service determines recipients, message queue (Kafka/SQS) buffers delivery, channel-specific workers handle push/email/SMS. Discuss user preference management, rate limiting per user, deduplication with idempotency keys, retry with exponential backoff, and dead letter queues for failed deliveries. Mention observability: delivery rate dashboards and alerting on degradation.
A key metric in your service dropped 20% overnight. Walk me through your investigation process.
Demonstrate structured debugging: first check if it is a measurement issue (instrumentation change, deploy), then segment by geography, device, and user cohort. Check recent deployments and rollbacks. Review dependency health dashboards. Build a hypothesis tree and systematically eliminate branches. This is tested at Meta and Google to evaluate how you handle ambiguity and use data to drive decisions.
How do you approach code reviews, and what do you look for beyond correctness?
Discuss looking for readability and maintainability, adherence to existing patterns, performance implications at scale, security vulnerabilities (injection, auth bypass), test coverage and test quality, error handling and observability. Mention how you give constructive feedback: lead with questions rather than directives, explain the why behind suggestions, and acknowledge good patterns you see.
How to Prepare for Software Engineer Interviews
Practice Coding with Pattern Recognition
Solve 2-3 LeetCode problems daily, but focus on identifying which of the 15-20 core patterns applies (sliding window, two pointers, BFS/DFS, dynamic programming, union find, monotonic stack). After solving, write down the pattern used and when to apply it. Target LC Medium difficulty as this matches actual FAANG phone screen difficulty. Track your weak patterns and drill those specifically.
Master System Design with the 4-Step Framework
For system design rounds at FAANG, practice designing systems for 100M+ users using this framework: 1) Requirements gathering: separate functional from non-functional (latency, throughput, availability), 2) High-level design with component diagram, 3) Deep dive into one component (database schema, API design, or data flow), 4) Discuss tradeoffs and bottlenecks. Practice with real systems: design YouTube, Uber, Twitter, and a payment processing system.
Prepare for AI-Assisted Coding Rounds
Meta introduced AI-assisted coding interviews in late 2025, and other companies are following. Practice coding with Cursor or GitHub Copilot in your IDE. The key skill being tested is not prompt engineering but your ability to verify, debug, and extend AI-generated code. Practice reading unfamiliar codebases quickly and adding features to existing code rather than writing from scratch.
Build a Behavioral Story Bank
Prepare 8-10 specific stories covering: technical leadership (drove architecture decision), conflict resolution (disagreed with a senior engineer), failure and recovery (shipped a bug to production), cross-team collaboration, and mentoring. For each story, prepare exact metrics: latency reduced by X%, revenue impact of $Y, team velocity improved by Z%. Amazon asks 1-2 Leadership Principle questions per round, so map your stories to their 16 principles.
Simulate Real Interview Conditions
Practice on a whiteboard or shared editor (not your IDE with autocomplete). Set a 45-minute timer. Talk out loud the entire time. Record yourself and review. The gap between solving a problem at your desk versus performing under interview pressure is significant. Do at least 5 mock interviews with another person before your real interviews.
Software Engineer Interview Formats
Phone Screen / Online Assessment
A 45-60 minute video call with 1-2 coding problems, typically LeetCode Medium difficulty, on a shared editor like CoderPad. At Google this is done via Google Meet with a Google Doc. Meta uses a similar format but may include their new AI-assisted coding round. You are evaluated on correctness, code quality, communication, and ability to handle edge cases. Some companies like Amazon start with an automated online assessment (OA) before the phone screen.
On-site / Virtual Loop
Typically 4-6 rounds in a single day: 2 coding rounds (algorithms and data structures), 1 system design round (for mid-level and above), and 1-2 behavioral/culture fit rounds. At Google, at least one round may be in-person as of 2025. At Amazon, every round includes Leadership Principle questions. At Meta, one coding round may be the new AI-assisted format. Each interviewer submits independent feedback, and a hiring committee makes the final decision.
Take-Home Assignment + Code Review
Some companies (Stripe, Shopify, smaller startups) send a 3-8 hour project that simulates real work: build an API endpoint, implement a data pipeline, or create a small feature. This is followed by a 45-60 minute live code review where you explain your decisions, discuss tradeoffs, and extend the solution. You are evaluated on code organization, testing, documentation, and ability to justify your architectural choices.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Jumping into coding without clarifying requirements or discussing approach
Spend 3-5 minutes asking clarifying questions (What scale? What are the constraints? Are there edge cases?), then outline your approach in 2-3 sentences before writing any code. Companies report that 82% of candidates in 2025-2026 are now required to provide flawless implementations, so getting alignment on approach first prevents wasted time on the wrong solution.
Freezing under pressure or going silent during problem solving
Interviewers cannot evaluate your thinking if you are silent. Practice narrating your thought process: "I am considering two approaches here. Option A uses a hashmap for O(1) lookup but uses O(n) space. Option B sorts first for O(n log n) time but O(1) space. Given the constraints, I will go with A because..." If you get stuck, verbalize that too: "I am stuck on the edge case where the input is empty. Let me think about what should happen here."
Underplaying your independence and impact in behavioral answers
Senior candidates often speak in generalities like "we worked on a project" instead of specifying "I identified the performance bottleneck, proposed the caching strategy, got buy-in from 3 teams, and the change reduced p99 latency from 800ms to 120ms." Use "I" language for your specific contributions and "we" only when describing team dynamics. Connect every story to a measurable business outcome.
Not adapting to the AI-assisted coding format
If your interview includes an AI-assisted round, do not over-rely on the AI or ignore it completely. Use it strategically: for boilerplate code, syntax you are unsure about, or generating test cases. But always read and verify every line the AI produces. The evaluation has shifted from code production speed to code verification and review skills. Practice with Cursor or Copilot before your interview.
Software Engineer Interview FAQs
How long should I prepare for a software engineering interview at a top tech company?
Most successful candidates spend 6-12 weeks preparing with 2-3 hours of daily practice. Break it into phases: weeks 1-4 for coding fundamentals (aim for 100-150 LeetCode problems focusing on patterns, not volume), weeks 5-8 for system design (study 8-10 real systems), and weeks 9-12 for behavioral preparation and mock interviews. If you are targeting multiple companies, stagger your applications so your top choice interviews come after you have practiced with other companies.
What has changed in software engineering interviews in 2025-2026?
Three major shifts: 1) Meta introduced AI-assisted coding interviews where you code alongside an AI assistant, and other companies are experimenting with similar formats. 2) Hiring has become more selective with volumes still 54% below 2021 peaks, meaning companies expect higher quality solutions with proper error handling. 3) AI/ML knowledge is increasingly expected even for general SWE roles, with 50% of tech job postings now referencing AI skills compared to 10% in 2023.
What programming language should I use in coding interviews?
Use the language you are most fluent in. Python remains the most popular choice due to its concise syntax and rich standard library. Java and C++ are strong choices for demonstrating data structure knowledge. Go is increasingly accepted. The specific language matters less than your fluency: hesitating on syntax or standard library functions wastes precious time and signals unfamiliarity. Never use a language you recently learned just because you think the company prefers it.
How important is system design for mid-level engineers (L4/E4)?
Critical. Every FAANG company tests system design starting at mid-level. At Google L4, you get a full 45-minute system design round. At Meta E4, system design is part of the evaluation. You do not need to design Google-scale systems, but you must understand: load balancers, caching strategies (Redis, CDN), database choices (SQL vs NoSQL), message queues, and basic horizontal scaling. Practice 8-10 classic problems like designing a URL shortener, chat application, and news feed.
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Last updated: 2026-02-11 | Written by JobJourney Career Experts