Software Engineer, Applied AI Interview Experience

I got sourced by a contractor first and then handed off to an actual OpenAI recruiter, which was a little unusual but pretty smooth. The process was a recruiter screen, then a first technical screen with one system design and one coding round, then a virtual onsite with only two more technicals plus behavioral, cross-functional behavioral, and a project deep dive. What stood out most was that the coding wasn't really LeetCode-shaped even though that was the prep guidance I got. The whole loop felt much more practical and scale-heavy than expected, and the project deep dive was easily the most probing part because they kept asking what I actually did and why. My main takeaway was that they want strong generalist problem solvers more than people who just memorize interview patterns.

I got sourced by a contractor first and then handed off to an actual OpenAI recruiter, which was a little unusual but pretty smooth. The process was a recruiter screen, then a first technical screen with one system design and one coding round, then a virtual onsite with only two more technicals plus behavioral, cross-functional behavioral, and a project deep dive. What stood out most was that the coding wasn't really LeetCode-shaped even though that was the prep guidance I got. The whole loop felt much more practical and scale-heavy than expected, and the project deep dive was easily the most probing part because they kept asking what I actually did and why. My main takeaway was that they want strong generalist problem solvers more than people who just memorize interview patterns.