First-hand accounts of FAANG onsite loops — rounds, questions asked, and preparation tips. Select a company to read.
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These accounts reflect formats, question types, and experiences commonly reported by candidates at these companies. Use them to prepare for what you might see in your own loop.
Google L4 (SDE II equivalent) expects you to solve both coding problems cleanly and handle a system design round at an intermediate level. Practice medium/hard LeetCode problems, focus on BFS/DFS, DP, and two-pointer patterns, and study system design fundamentals. The Googleyness round tests behavioral fit — prepare 3–4 strong conflict and impact stories.
Critical. Amazon evaluates LP fit in dedicated behavioral rounds and throughout the loop. Every story must use 'I' not 'we', and include a specific, quantified outcome. Bar raisers pay close attention to Ownership, Dive Deep, and Customer Obsession signals.
At E4, Meta expects you to design a medium-complexity system (social feed, messaging service) with coverage of data modeling, API design, and basic scaling. Fan-out strategy (write vs read) and storage tradeoffs are commonly tested. Failing to address these is one of the most common reasons for no-offer at E4.
Netflix adds a 'culture add' round that carries real weight — technical strength alone won't get you an offer. Interviewers assess candor, context-not-control behavior, and whether you'd score well on the 'keeper test'. The coding gate is lighter than at Google or Meta, but system design rounds go very deep.
Apple's SWE loop typically has 5–6 rounds: a phone screen, 1–2 coding rounds (medium LeetCode style), 1–2 system design rounds, and a team match interview. The team match conversation is crucial — Apple hires for specific teams, not a central pool, so showing genuine interest in the team's domain matters.
Stripe's interview is known for being rigorous and practical. The loop includes a systems coding round, a debugging round (fixing broken code), and behavioral rounds. Stripe evaluates clean code and thoughtful API design over raw algorithmic speed.
Microsoft's loop is typically 4–5 rounds: mostly coding (medium LeetCode difficulty), 1 system design round (for senior roles), and an 'as-appropriate' interview with a senior leader who makes the final hiring recommendation.