OpenAI Software Engineer
interview guide
Prepare for practical coding, system design and detailed questions about your own projects, with guidance on how OpenAI's interviews vary by team.
What to expect at OpenAI
OpenAI software engineering interviews can involve building a small system as requirements are added, debugging an existing repository and explaining how a design behaves when something fails. The project discussion asks you to go into the decisions and implementation details of work you personally owned.
General SWE, applied, full-stack and infrastructure teams use different combinations of rounds. Confirm the interview list with your recruiter before choosing specialist practice.
Preparing for the project deep dive
Prepare a project with enough technical substance for sustained questioning. Expect to pause for follow-ups before reaching the end of your slides. Keep additional problems and decisions ready to discuss beyond the examples in your opening.
A useful rehearsal is a five-minute opening followed by questions. Keep diagrams, measurements and alternatives ready. Spend more time defending a real decision than polishing the slide deck.
Inside the full guide
7 sectionsThe interview process
Screens, later rounds, team matching and how the process can vary.
Coding questions and follow-ups
Staged implementations, repository debugging and the requirements that change between variants.
System design
Reported design scenarios and the failure cases worth rehearsing.
Applied and full-stack interviews
Live builds, refactoring and preparation for team-specific formats.
Project deep dive and behavioural questions
Technical decisions, personal ownership and examples of working with other teams.
Tools, timing and reapplication
Coding environments, documentation and AI permissions, and what to confirm beforehand.
A practical preparation sequence
How to organise coding, design, project rehearsal and timed practice.