OpenAI Interview Questions and Guide
Practical, multi-part coding problems over puzzles. Project deep dives probe ownership and technical depth.
The OpenAI interview loop
- Recruiter screen
- Technical screen (practical coding)
- Onsite: practical coding, system design, project deep dive, behavioral
OpenAI interview questions
- Design a Web Crawler
- Design a Chat LLM Serving Platform
- Design Slack
- Design Online Chess
- Design a CI/CD System
- Design a Remote Devbox
- Design a Crossword Puzzle Solver
- Design Smart Grid Device Control
- Design ChatGPT Playground
- Design a Batch Inference System
- Design ML Model Distribution
- Design Sora (Text-to-Video)
- Design a Data Labeling Platform
- In-Memory Database (Multi-Part)
- Time-Based Key-Value Store
- Implement a Rate Limiter Class
- Design a Spreadsheet with Formulas
- Walk me through your most impactful project
- Why do you want to work here?
- Tell me about a time you had to learn something new quickly
- What questions do you have for me?
- Tell me about a time you proposed a bold vision
- Tell me about a judgment call where others disagreed with you
- Tell me about something you learned outside your job that made you better at it
- Tell me about a time you kept going on a problem that seemed stuck
- Tell me about creating structure in a chaotic situation
- Tell me about a time your values were tested at work
- Tell me about a time you balanced speed against safety
- Why do you want to work on AI?
- Describe the hardest problem you've solved
- Tell me about solving a problem from first principles
- Teach me something you recently learned
- Extend an Unfamiliar Codebase with AI
- Debug a Failing Test Suite with AI
- Build a Small App from a Spec with AI
- Analyze Logs with a Script and AI