OpenAI interview questions

Showing 61–90 of 342 results

• Design Mobile Model Usage QuotasMedium

  Design an end-to-end quota and rate-limiting system for a mobile AI chat client, focusing on client-side state management, API contract design, and multi-device synchronization.

  OpenAIAndroid EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Online Chess MatchmakingHard

  This question tests the ability to design a distributed, low-latency matchmaking system that balances player skill (MMR), wait time, and network latency under high concurrency.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Online Chess Matchmaking and ClocksMedium

  This question tests your ability to design a real-time game backend, focusing on low-latency state synchronization, fair matchmaking, and reliable clock management in a distributed environment.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Payment Authorization, Capture, and Batch SettlementMedium

  Design a resilient payment processing platform supporting two-phase payment operations (authorize and capture), double-entry ledgering, and asynchronous batch settlement with external financial gateways.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Photo Storage with SHA-256 Content Deduplication and Safe DeletionHard

  Design a photo storage service that deduplicates identical uploads by their SHA-256 content hash. Cover the upload flow with server-side verification, concurrent identical uploads, deletion with reference counting and garbage collection, and the privacy risks of deduplicating across users. It tests content-addressed storage design.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design Power-Grid Device Monitoring over Unreliable Networks: Dedup and Late EventsHard

  Design a monitoring platform for power-grid devices that report readings and upload logs over unreliable public networks. Ingestion must be idempotent, deduplicate retransmissions, handle out-of-order and late events and accept batched uploads. It tests IoT ingestion, event-time processing and resilience to reconnect storms.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design Real-Time Collaborative EditingMedium

  This question tests your ability to design a low-latency, distributed synchronization system that manages concurrent text edits from multiple users while maintaining eventual consistency.

  OpenAIMachine Learning EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Real-Time Electricity Monitoring and Policy ControlHard

  Design a distributed real-time electricity monitoring and policy actuation system that ingests high-throughput telemetry, evaluates dynamic load-shedding policies with hysteresis, and reliably issues auditable commands to edge devices.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Restart Strategy for Oracle SolverMedium

  This question tests the ability to optimize restart intervals for a randomized algorithm with heavy-tailed runtime distributions, balancing the trade-off between progress and computation waste.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerMachine LearningHR Screen
• Design Schema and Logic for Subscription Event TrackingMedium

  This question evaluates proficiency in event-driven data modeling, temporal state derivation, and implementation of SQL/Python logic to compute per-user subscription status and history within the Data Manipulation (SQL/Python) domain.

  OpenAIData ScientistData Manipulation (SQL/Python)Online Assessment
• Design Schema for Accurate Subscription State TrackingMedium

  This question evaluates proficiency in temporal schema design and event-level data modeling, focusing on reconstructing time-varying subscription state using SQL and Python in the Data Manipulation (SQL/Python) domain.

  OpenAIData ScientistData Manipulation (SQL/Python)Online Assessment
• Design Slack-like messaging platformMedium

  This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design scalable, secure, real-time messaging systems, testing competencies in distributed systems, data modeling, API design, storage and sharding strategies, search indexing, and notification delivery.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Slack-like multi-tenant global messaging systemMedium

  This question tests the ability to design a global, multi-tenant messaging platform that handles high-concurrency real-time delivery, data isolation, and low-latency synchronization across distributed environments.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design Video Generation OrchestrationMedium

  This system design question tests a candidate's ability to architect asynchronous, distributed job-orchestration pipelines at scale. It evaluates practical knowledge of durable queues, state machines, reliability patterns like the outbox and idempotency, and trade-offs between throughput and latency in GPU-constrained systems.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a CI/CD pipeline with schedulerHard

  An OpenAI software-engineering system design interview question: design a production-grade CI/CD pipeline for a large microservices monorepo, end to end. It spans source-control triggers, build and artifact management, layered testing with flaky-test handling, progressive deployment and rollback, observability, supply-chain security, and — the differentiator — the job scheduler that orchestrates pipeline steps (DAG modeling, concurrency, priorities, retries, caching, rate limiting) plus its data stores, queues, APIs, schemas, multi-tenant fairness, KPIs/SLOs, and failure handling.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a CI/CD system with live log streamingHard

  This question tests the ability to design a distributed job orchestration system that handles task dependencies, secure execution, and low-latency log streaming at scale.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a CI/CD system with stuck-job handlingHard

  This problem tests your ability to design a distributed job scheduling and orchestration system that handles process failures, network partitions, and job timeouts to ensure reliable execution in a high-scale environment.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Chat Assistant Inference Service: Streaming, Free-Tier Limits, GPU SchedulingHard

  Design the serving system for a chat assistant built on a large language model: stream replies token by token, rate-limit a free tier alongside paid users, schedule requests onto GPUs efficiently, and meet latency targets. It tests streaming protocols, batching, GPU memory limits, rate limiting and overload handling.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a ChatGPT-like web chat UIHard

  This problem evaluates your ability to design a performant, scalable front-end architecture for a real-time conversational AI interface, focusing on state management, streaming data handling, and network resilience.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Cloud DevBox PlatformHard

  This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design scalable, secure cloud development platforms, testing competencies in distributed systems architecture, orchestration and scheduling, storage and persistence, multi-tenancy and RBAC, runtime isolation, and operational observability.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Cloud Development EnvironmentMedium

  Design a secure, multi-tenant cloud development environment platform that provisions isolated compute instances, supports low-latency interactive editing, and reliably persists workspace state across disconnects.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Cloud Development Environment Platform Like an Online IDEMedium

  Design a cloud development environment platform, like an online IDE, where developers open a repository in a hosted workspace with a browser editor, a terminal and forwarded ports, then stop and resume it later. It tests sandbox isolation, workspace storage, fast startup, secure connectivity and cost control.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Cloud IDE That Edits and Runs Code in Browser-Accessible WorkspacesHard

  Design a cloud IDE in which developers edit and run code and use a terminal in the browser while their files and execution environments live on remote servers. It tests workspace lifecycle and cold starts, isolation of untrusted code, durable file storage, real-time editor and terminal channels, host scheduling, and failure handling at scale.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Cloud IDE With SSH Access Where One or More Users Share a HostMedium

  A system design question about building a cloud IDE in which developers get SSH access to remote development hosts, and a host can be used by one person or shared by several. It tests host lifecycle management, connection routing through a gateway, workspace persistence, multi-user access control and isolation.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Content-Addressed Photo Storage ServiceMedium

  Design a scalable, content-addressed photo storage service with cryptographic verification, resumable chunked uploads, reference-counted deduplication, and protections against unauthorized hash-probing attacks.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Conversational AI AssistantMedium

  This question tests the ability to design a low-latency, scalable architecture for an LLM-based conversational assistant capable of handling concurrent user requests and streaming responses.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Devbox Service for On-Demand Remote Development EnvironmentsHard

  System design question asking you to design a devbox service that gives engineers on-demand remote development environments. It tests scoping requirements before architecture, the devbox lifecycle, fast provisioning, persistent workspaces, idle cost control, isolation, connectivity and failure recovery.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Digital Game Distribution PlatformHard

  Design a high-scale game distribution platform covering reliable payment and entitlement tracking, content-addressed binary chunk distribution, offline license leasing, and canary rollouts.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Digital Game Store and Distribution Platform Like SteamMedium

  A system design interview question asking you to design a digital game store and distribution platform like Steam, covering the catalog, purchases, player libraries, and game downloads and updates. It tests content delivery for very large builds, entitlement consistency with payments, and handling traffic spikes during sales and launches.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Distributed Crossword SolverHard

  This problem tests your ability to design a distributed system capable of solving large-scale constraint satisfaction problems (crossword puzzles) by partitioning search spaces and managing state across workers.

  OpenAISoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite