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Software Engineer Interview Questions
Practice 9403 coding, system design and machine learning questions from 546 companies, sorted by role, topic and interview round. Every question has step-by-step hints, a code runner that supports 8 languages and an AI mentor; members also get the full solution walkthrough.
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Showing 811–840 of 5874 results
- AnthropicHardSoftware EngineerScale crawler with thread pool
This question evaluates system design and concurrent programming competencies, focusing on bounded thread-pool architecture, thread-safe frontier and deduplication structures, per-host politeness and in-flight limits, reliability mechanisms (timeouts, retries, backoff), and graceful shutdown and termination semantics.
System DesignTechnical Screen - AnthropicHardSoftware EngineerSchedule instructions on a VLIW pipeline
This question evaluates proficiency in VLIW instruction scheduling, pipeline hazard analysis (RAW/WAR/WAW), register-pressure management, and software-pipelining for loop kernels within the System Design domain of computer architecture and compiler backends.
System DesignOnsite - AnthropicHardSoftware EngineerSimulate Threshold Infection Efficiently
Simulate a synchronous threshold-based infection process on a grid using an incremental multi-source BFS to achieve optimal linear time complexity.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiteBFSGraphMatrix - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerSimulate stack traces from logs
This question evaluates stack-based simulation for computing exclusive execution time in nested function call logs and stream-processing concepts for handling equal timestamps, slight reordering, and detection of N consecutive categorical events.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsite - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerSolve programming task with follow-ups
This question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving skills, including core algorithm implementation, handling a consecutive-N-element constraint, and designing an optimization that leverages suffix-related information.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerSystem Design: Pushing a Multi-Terabyte Snapshot to Thousands of Nodes
Figure out the theoretical floor on how fast a large search-index snapshot can reach every node in a fleet given each machine's shared upload/download bandwidth, then design a chunked, peer-assisted distribution scheme that approaches that floor and copes with stragglers and failures. Tests bandwidth reasoning and evolving a design from a naive baseline.
System DesignOnsitesystem-designnetworkingdistributed-systems - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerTime-Based Key-Value Store
Design a versioned key-value store that supports storing values at specific timestamps and retrieving the most recent value at or before a given timestamp.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsitebinary-searchhash-tabledesign - AnthropicHardSoftware EngineerWalk through a recent technical project
This question evaluates a candidate's engineering depth and leadership competency by requiring a structured walkthrough of a recent technical project covering problem framing, architectural trade-offs, data modeling and APIs, scalability and reliability, testing and rollout, and measurement of outcomes.
Behavioral & LeadershipOnsite - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerWhy Anthropic and its values?
This question evaluates a candidate's culture fit, value alignment, integrity under pressure, and critical thinking within the Behavioral & Leadership category for a software engineering role.
Behavioral & LeadershipTechnical Screen - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerWhy Anthropic, What AI Safety Means to You, and AI Misuse: Recruiter Screen Prep
Prepare for a recruiter screen at an AI safety lab that spends most of its time on motivation and safety views: why you are leaving, why this lab over others, what AI safety means to you, misuse scenarios, the biggest risks and benefits of advanced AI, and an underrated problem. It tests depth, honesty and preparation.
Behavioral & LeadershipOnsite - AnthropicHardSoftware EngineerWhy Join an AI Safety-Focused Lab, and What Is Your View on AI Safety?
A recruiter-call question for a senior software engineer at an AI lab: explain why you want to join this particular company and share your own view on AI safety. It tests whether your motivation is specific and sincere, whether you can state a reasoned, calibrated position on AI risk, and how you connect safety to engineering work.
Behavioral & LeadershipOnsite - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerWhy Work on AI Safety
Assesses your motivation and understanding of AI safety, focusing on how engineering skills intersect with frontier risks, mitigation strategies, and intellectual honesty.
Behavioral & LeadershipHR ScreenAI SafetyBehavioralCulture Fit - AnthropicMediumSoftware EngineerWord Search in a Letter Grid
This problem tests the ability to implement a backtracking search on a 2D grid, optimized with a Trie data structure to efficiently search for multiple strings simultaneously.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiteTrieBacktrackingDFS - AntraMediumSoftware EngineerCharacter Frequency Count in a String
This problem tests your ability to manipulate strings and utilize hash maps to count character frequencies while maintaining the original order of character appearance.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenStringsHash MapAlgorithms - AntraEasySoftware EngineerExplain core Java and Spring fundamentals
This question evaluates core competencies in Java and Spring, covering data structures and collections, object-oriented design (SOLID), hash-based collections and concurrency primitives, immutability and string handling, exception handling, Spring IoC/DI and AOP, bean lifecycle and annotations, and functional collection processing via the Stream API. Commonly asked in Software Engineering Fundamentals interviews for backend Java/Spring roles, it checks both conceptual understanding and practical application by assessing architectural reasoning, concurrency and thread-safety knowledge, and familiarity with framework conventions and APIs.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - AntraMediumSoftware EngineerJava and Object-Oriented Design Fundamentals
This problem tests your understanding of interface design, the Liskov Substitution Principle, and proper usage of Java Collections in a Spring-managed context.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenJavaSpringSOLID - AntraMediumSoftware EngineerLongest Substring Without Repeating Characters
This problem tests your ability to implement an efficient sliding window technique using a hash map to track character indices and maintain a valid substring constraint.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenSliding WindowHash MapString - AnyscaleMediumSoftware EngineerDesign a Service That Sends a JSON Payload to a URL at a Scheduled Time
Design a service that accepts JSON requests containing a target URL, a UTC timestamp and a payload, stores them durably, and sends each payload to its URL at the scheduled time. It tests finding due work at scale, delivery guarantees and retries, isolation from slow endpoints, outbound-request security and failure recovery.
System DesignOnsite - AppleHardSoftware EngineerASIC Verification Fundamentals Across SystemVerilog UVM CDC and Architecture
Review a broad ASIC verification set covering SystemVerilog semantics, UVM lifecycle and communication, random constraints, clock-domain crossing, FIFO sizing, timing, clock division, cache coherence, and pipeline hazards. Strong responses distinguish simulation from hardware, define assumptions, derive quantities, compare trade-offs, and use precise examples.
Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsite - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerAnswer OoO, caches, and memory-system questions
This question evaluates core computer-architecture and system-level skills—covering out-of-order execution structures, branch prediction (gshare) mechanics, register renaming/RAT tracing, VLIW versus superscalar tradeoffs, cache coherence protocols, load/store subsystem behavior, copy-on-write after fork, cache indexing math, VIPT aliasing, and asynchronous FIFO design—and is categorized under Software Engineering Fundamentals. It is commonly asked because it probes a candidate’s microarchitectural and OS understanding, performance reasoning, and ability to explain low-level (microarchitecture and system-level) concepts and interactions without requiring full ISA-specific implementations.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerBehavioral Round: Judgment, Prioritization, and Influence
This set of prompts assesses your ability to navigate complex workplace dynamics by evaluating your decision-making frameworks, adaptability under pressure, and interpersonal influence strategies.
Behavioral & LeadershipOnsiteCommunicationLeadershipConflict Resolution - AppleEasySoftware EngineerCafe Open-Now Check: Split Shifts and Midnight-Crossing Hours
Build an 'is the cafe open right now' check across three stages of growing complexity -- one fixed daily window, then select weekdays, then multiple shifts per day including windows that cross midnight. Tests clean incremental time modeling more than any single clever algorithm.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screentimemodelingintervals - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerCapture Enclosed O Regions in an X/O Grid Using Union-Find Instead of Flood Fill
Given a grid of X and O cells, capture every region of edge-connected O cells that does not touch the border by turning it into X, using a disjoint-set (union-find) structure instead of flood fill. Tests union-find implementation, mapping grid cells to set indices and correct border handling.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerCloud Provider Design for Provisioning Resources Through Terraform
A cloud infrastructure design question asking what a cloud provider must build so customers can create, update and destroy its resources with Terraform. It tests mapping the Terraform resource lifecycle to provider APIs, handling long-running operations and their status, idempotent retries, and drift detection.
System DesignTechnical Screen - AppleHardSoftware EngineerCompute conflicts and minimum meeting rooms
This question evaluates the ability to reason about interval overlaps and resource allocation, testing algorithmic thinking and efficient handling of time-interval data in scheduling contexts and belongs to the Coding & Algorithms domain.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerCompute island size in grid
This interview question evaluates algorithm design, data structures, correctness, complexity, edge cases, and implementation details in a realistic interview setting. A strong answer for Compute island size in grid states assumptions, handles edge cases, explains trade-offs, and shows how to validate the result clearly.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerCompute minimum required meeting rooms
This question evaluates understanding of interval scheduling and resource-allocation concepts, proficiency with data structures for detecting temporal overlaps (heap and sweep-line paradigms), and the ability to analyze time and space complexity while handling edge cases.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerCompute top three scores per student
This interview question evaluates algorithm design, data structures, correctness, complexity, edge cases, and implementation details in a realistic interview setting. A strong answer for Compute top three scores per student states assumptions, handles edge cases, explains trade-offs, and shows how to validate the result clearly.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerConvert a Roman Numeral to an Integer
This problem tests your ability to parse string-based symbols while applying conditional arithmetic logic to handle additive and subtractive Roman numeral rules.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiteStringsHash MapMath - AppleMediumSoftware EngineerCopy a Linked List with Random Pointers
This problem tests your ability to manipulate linked structures and manage pointer state without using extra hash maps for space optimization.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiteLinked ListPointer ManipulationAlgorithms
Anthropic
Apple