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OpenAI Interview Experiences
3935 interview stories from candidates at 857 companies: how each round went, what was asked and how it ended. Every company page links to practice questions in the same style.
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49 results
- Failed the Phone Screen on a Malloc ImplementationOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026Rejected
A recruiter reached out to me. I think my background was a good fit, because they only screened me a little before scheduling the phone interview. I got one question, malloc, with some tests provided. Part 1 was malloc/free. I wrote it by hand, using a list to simulate a linked list, and I couldn't get it to pass in one go. I debugged for a while, then the interviewer gave me a hint, I rewrote a…
- Fault-Tolerant Queue Coding and Online Devbox Design Phone ScreensOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026In progress
I interviewed last week. After work I prepared on and off for over a month, and I went through basically all the questions on the forum. The phone screen was two rounds, one coding and one design. The coding question was a fault tolerant queue. I had to implement enqueue, reserve, fail and a DLQ, and they gave unit tests that all had to pass. The first part went fairly smoothly and all the tests…
- Fault-Tolerant Work Queue Coding Plus a Metrics Monitoring Design RoundOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026In progress
Coding Fault-Tolerant Work Queue I solved the first part but got stuck on one silly bug which took a long time, but I got it to green eventually. I coded up the second part quickly but couldn't run the code due to time. The interviewer said it should be okay, that I was very close, and that I am good. System Design Metrics monitoring variation I did okay in this round. The interviewer didn't seem…
- Phone Screen Failed on a Fault Tolerant Queue and a Typing Race DesignOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026Rejected
I had two phone screen rounds, one coding and one design. The coding round was a fault tolerant queue. I had to implement enqueue, reserve, fail, and a DLQ, and there were 7 unit tests that all had to pass. Part 2 added task dependencies. Each task comes with a cooldown after it gets preempted, and you have to use the preempt timestamp to work out yourself when the cooldown ends. Also, when a tas…
- System Design for a Real-Time Trivia Battle Royale PlatformOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026
Sharing the system design question from one round of my OpenAI technical interview. The question was given on the spot, and the design below is my solution. Happy to discuss. Question Design a real-time trivia battle royale platform: dozens to a hundred or so players join a room, questions are released round by round, and each round eliminates the players who answer wrong and the slowest player.…
- Three-Part Sliding Window Coding RoundOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026
A few days ago I had a technical interview at OpenAI. The coding round had this multi-part problem, so I'm sharing the problem statement and my solution. Part 1: Recent Interaction Count Implement an in-memory, single-threaded chat session analytics service. The input is a live interaction log stream whose global ts is non-decreasing. Each log entry has: user: str, chat: int (unique within each u…
- An Unfamiliar IoT Log-Platform Design QuestionOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
Coding: KV store. System design: This seemed to be a new question. I don't think I'd seen it in interview reports. Design an IoT log platform: Large numbers of devices continuously collect logs both online and offline, and upload them in batches when online. The platform can also send requests to devices asking them to record particular types of logs. The platform needs to receive and store logs…
- Devbox System Design Phone Screen, Built the Wrong ThingOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
I was asked the devbox design question and I failed to recognize it as such, since I didn't practice it much, nor was it among the hot questions on the forum. I ended up creating a generic container orchestration platform. Another interview-prep site I looked at does mark it as a MUST, so it would be useful for other candidates to peek at other question lists too. The interview experience was ove…
- Free-Trial Take-home and Four Final Interview RoundsOpenAI · Data Scientist · Onsite · Sep 2026
Take-home assignment + live review take home assignment related to free trial Explore the data, identify key insights, and make recommendations. Deliver a polished and concise slide deck. This is followed by a 1-hour live interview: 20–25 minutes: take home discussion 20–25 minutes: hands on sql 10 minutes: python debug Hiring Manager Interview 1 hour project deep dive with the hiring manager Ons…
- New Card Game Coding Round That Tests Extensible OOD DesignOpenAI · Research Scientist · Onsite · Sep 2026
The role was RS. I got a new coding problem, a card game. The first three parts were: first, implement a comparison where three of a kind > pair > high card; second, add a new hand so the order becomes three of a kind > flush > pair > high card; third, a discard rule (the rule I got is not quite the same as the one people posted on the forum, mine was to discard if it is not a pair). You can use…
- Onsite with Grid Design and an Infection Coding RoundOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026In progress
I finished my onsite last week, so I'm sharing my experience before the result comes out. Design: grid. I hadn't looked at any interview reports and was totally clueless. The interviewer was really nice and kept guiding me, and in the end I managed to come up with some stuff, but it's probably not looking good. Project: I talked about a fairly big product that I recently led the launch of. The sc…
- Positive Feedback, Rejected for a Better Background MatchOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
Interview experience for an OpenAI team-specific hire. Just giving a little back to the forum. Phone screen: Coding: GPU Credit 2 System Design: Payment System About a week after the phone screen I had an HM chat, and after that I moved on to the onsite. Onsite: Coding: Plant Infection System Design: Design Steam Deep Dive HM Chat (with a neighboring team) The Deep Dive and the HM Chat were both…
- Strong Coding, Closed Out as a Borderline Case After the Virtual OnsiteOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
Overall, I just did my best (shrug). Phone screen: Coding — "infection," 3/5. I got stuck on a bug on the third question and spent about 15 minutes debugging it. System design: chess. Interviewed on a Thursday, heard back that I passed by the following Monday. Virtual Onsite: Coding — IP address, 3.5/5. I got to the IPv6 part of the question and was hunched over looking up how to write a BigInteg…
- Transformer Bug Hunt with KV Cache from Scratch and a Five-Part Plant Infection ProblemOpenAI · Machine Learning Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
Hi, I am preparing for OpenAI's ML coding interview and have summarized the ML coding questions mentioned in the OpenAI/Anthropic interview rounds I have given so far. Anthropic Research Fundamentals Round: It was related to implementing an ML algo and discussing various research/mathematical aspects around it. OpenAI ML Coding (Transformer Debugging): Debugging 4-5 implanted bugs in the transfor…
- Virtual Onsite Design Round: Sora With One GPU per TaskOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026In progress
Same as the coding round, the interviewer pulled out the question from my phone screen. But the interviewer was really friendly, and he also told me an important piece of information: right now the company has interviewers pick the power grid question as their first choice, so everyone should prepare that one more. Later it switched to designing Sora, and a pretty useful constraint was that each…
- Virtual Onsite Rescheduled a Dozen Times, GPU Credit Coding RoundOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
First, let me vent about how chaotic this company is. It was originally scheduled as 4 rounds in one day. Then it got rescheduled a dozen-plus times and ended up as 4 days with 1 round each. The interviewer also got swapped 7-8 times... On top of that, the interviewer didn't know what I'd been asked in the phone screen, so the question they gave me was the same one as my phone screen, and then th…
- A Brand-New Rectangle Coding Question and a Grid System DesignOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
I just finished my OpenAI interview and wanted to share today's experience. Unfortunately, the coding round gave me a brand new question I had never seen before. The topic was Rectangle. Roughly, you maintain a 2D board, and requirements get added step by step: add rectangle remove rectangle undo after that there were follow-ups like removeAt / batch remove The whole thing was multipart, adding o…
- Delayed Feedback in a Binary Search ProblemOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
This was my OpenAI rejection experience. Both the coding and system design questions may have been new, because I had never seen either one before. The coding problem had two parts, and both seemed related to binary search. In the first part, I had to implement binary search to guess a secret number. There was a function that reported whether my guess was too low or too high, but its response was…
- GPU Credits and a Photo Storage SystemOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
This was my OpenAI software engineer technical screen, adding a recent data point. The coding problem was GPU Credit. I had seen a similar question before, so I finished it almost immediately. The task was roughly to implement a GPU-credit or resource-credit system that supported: Granting a quantity of credits with activation and expiration times. Subtracting or consuming credits at a particular…
- Nailed the Memorized Coding Question, Lost the System Design RoundOpenAI · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
I applied to OpenAI myself back in June. As the interview got closer, I saw on the forum that the interview reports all seemed to be about the same handful of questions, so I decided to prepare those thoroughly and really understand them before going in. I ended up rescheduling three times, and the recruiter got angry — said I'd rescheduled three times already, which meant the timing wasn't right…
- Payment Holds, Charges, and Batch ProcessingOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
The question was to design a payment processor. The basic flow was that a merchant first sends a hold request, which we forward to the upstream payment network, then receive an approval or rejection. After a successful hold, there is a separate charge request later. Charges are then grouped by payment network into batch files and sent on a schedule. I'd prepared for payment-system questions befor…
- Plant-Infection Coding Round Plus an In-Depth Management InterviewOpenAI · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
A friend referred me to a tech + management role that required both domain knowledge and management experience. It was a 60-minute coding round, and the question was the pretty common plant-infection problem. I wrote up three parts of it and ran out of time, and only touched on the fourth part without really finishing it. The interviewer was very quiet, almost no back-and-forth. One thing worth f…
- Recruiter Rescheduled a Month, Rejected After One BQ CallOpenAI · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
The experience was pretty bad. The recruiter kept rescheduling. I applied in early July and was supposed to get a phone screen about a week later, but she had stuff come up plus vacation, so it didn't actually happen until early August. Then during the call she didn't turn her camera on, and the questions were all behavioral-type stuff — things like how do you manage people, what's a technically…
- Rejected After the Infrastructure Onsite RoundOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
Phone Screen: Coding — Snapshot Set Implement a Set that supports snapshots. Besides the normal add/remove operations, you need to support creating a snapshot and being able to read the state of the set at a given snapshot moment. Onsite 1: System Design — Design a Payment System Design a payment system where a transaction first goes through an external payment service for approval/denial. Once a…
- Ship a Working App, Not Just LeetCodeOpenAI · Full-Stack Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Offer
Before I get into it: this is a writeup of my full process interviewing for a Full-Stack role at OpenAI, along with my impressions, as a reference for people prepping. OpenAI's interviews are pretty different from traditional big-tech interviews (especially the pure-LeetCode-grinding kind) — it leans a lot more toward "real engineering + product sense + mission fit," so if you only prepped LeetCo…
- Two Back-to-Back Screens, No Break, RejectedOpenAI · Research Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
Sharing a recent phone screen with OpenAI for an RE (security track) role. I got rejected — hope this helps people getting ready for one of these. Interview format Two rounds, 60 minutes each, back to back, with no break in between. There was no round-specific prompt, just the generic Technical Interview Preparation PDF the recruiter sends out, which I'm assuming everyone gets the same version of…
- 75-Minute Malloc Screen, CoderPad Crashed, Advanced AnywayOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jul 2026In progress
There's not much to say about the question itself — it's just malloc. But the interview process wasn't quite what I imagined, so I'm sharing it for everyone's reference. The interviewer's background looked very, very strong. After reading the question, I went with the standard interview-report format and started with first-fit. The interviewer pressed for a ton of detail — what data structure to…
- A Down-to-the-Wire Coding Round and “Design ChatGPT”OpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2026
These were all questions I'd already seen before, and I still feel like I did so poorly — why can't I even execute cleanly on questions I already know... The coding round was GPU Credits II. I asked the interviewer a few clarifying questions, but he kept telling me to just go look for the answer myself in the test cases. I explained a brute-force approach, and the interviewer said he didn't fully…
- ChatGPT System Design, Vector Store and a Scheduler Debugging Round, RejectedOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2026Rejected
SWE VO System design: design ChatGPT. At first the interviewer said not to worry about scale and no need to persist anything. Later they asked why use SSE instead of WebSocket, and also asked how to optimize the frontend so that long conversations can still render well. Coding: all new questions I had never seen. I used Python. Vector Store The problem is to implement a simplified vector store th…
- Extra System Design Round, Then a Template RejectionOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jul 2026Rejected
Coding: It was the same as what's in the other interview write-ups, the chatbot that needs a refactor. The only difference was that for every person who is away, whenever someone @s them, the bot just directly replies with the away status. SD: CloudIDE. Maybe the interviewer wasn't very clear on what they wanted either, so I gave them an SSH version, where one person or several people can share a…
