Software Engineer Interview Prep: The 2026 Playbook
A realistic software engineer interview prep plan — DSA, system design, behavioural — tuned for FAANG and startup loops, with free AI tools to drill questions.
Software engineer interview prep in 2026 is three rounds, three skills, one routine. Get the routine right and the offer follows.
What SWE loops actually look like
Most loops: 1 recruiter screen, 1–2 coding rounds (DSA), 1 system design (mid/senior+), 1 behavioural. Big tech adds 1 more of each. Startups compress to 3–4 total.
DSA prep
Pattern coverage beats volume. Drill these 12 patterns:
- Hash map, two-pointer, sliding window, binary search, intervals.
- Trees: DFS, BFS, recursion, BST.
- Graphs: DFS, BFS, topological sort, Union-Find.
- Heap, DP basics (1D + 2D), backtracking.
5–8 problems per pattern at medium = 60–96 total. That's enough for most loops.
System design prep
Drill 6 templates: URL shortener, Twitter feed, chat, ride-matching, rate limiter, search autocomplete. Use one structure: clarify → API → data → scale → tradeoffs.
Generate practice prompts with the system design interview prep tool.
Behavioural prep
6 STAR stories (leadership, conflict, failure, deadline, impact, ambiguity). At Amazon, map each to 1 Leadership Principle. See the STAR method guide.
A 4-week study plan
- Week 1: 3 patterns/day on LeetCode, 1 system design template.
- Week 2: 3 patterns/day, 2 system design templates, 3 STAR stories drafted.
- Week 3: Mixed-pattern reps, 2 mock system design, 3 more STAR stories.
- Week 4: 4 mock loops with a partner; rest 1 day before onsite.
Big-tech specifics
- Google: hard medium DSA, deep tradeoff system design, "Googleyness" behavioural.
- Amazon: 1–2 LP-driven behavioural rounds. Map every story to an LP.
- Meta: coding speed (2 problems / 35 min), product sense for some roles.
- Microsoft / Apple: classic medium DSA + scenario-based behavioural.
Generate SWE-specific prep questions
Coding patterns, system design, behavioural — pre-tuned for SWE.