YouTube Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 61 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at YouTube.
YouTube
Software Engineer I
Entry Average Positive experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Take home Technical screen Recruiter call Phone screen
Interview formats
Coding Behavioral
I got an initial online assessment, and after passing that, I moved on to the next stages. There were 4 interview rounds in total. Three of them were focused on coding, and one was focused on behavioral questions. I was pretty lucky to even get a call back.
Confirmed questions1 question
- So, three interview rounds occurred, and I only cleared one out of the three. I feel like I could have performed better.
YouTube
Software Engineer
Mid Average Neutral experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Technical screen Technical screen Technical screen
Interview formats
Coding
The interview process was quite long and drawn out, taking over a month to complete with four interview rounds. They were also slow to respond. Each interview lasted about an hour and was generally fine.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Did you encounter any binary search problems during the interviews?
YouTube
Software Engineer
Mid Easy Positive experience Accept offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Technical Coding
The interview process was a great way for me to show off my skills and experience. As I moved through each step, from the first contact to the final rounds, I got a better feel for what the company is like and what they're looking for. The whole process was pretty detailed, which let me prove I have the right qualifications and can also handle changing situations well. All in all, going through the interviews was really helpful and a good experience I'll remember for my career.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Could you create a 2D array?
YouTube Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from YouTube interview reports.
“Given a binary tree where each node's key is the sum of its children plus itself, return a given node.”
Read reports →“Find the Kth smallest element in a merged array given two sorted arrays.”
Read reports →“Write a function to group a list of strings based on their last two characters. For example, input: cat, top, bat, hop, rot, sat, food, output: {op: [cat, bat, sat], top: [top, hop]}”
Read reports →“Find the least common ancestor of 2 nodes in a binary tree”
Read reports →“Given any two nodes in a binary tree, find their closest common ancestor.”
Read report →“Write a function that checks if element x exists in a list that's sorted first in ascending order and then in descending order (e.g., [1, 3, 5, 7, 6, 4, 2]).”
Read report →“Find the length of the longest consecutive sequence in an array of random integers.”
Read report →“What's the algorithm for grouping strings by their last two letters?”
Read report →“Can you count the number of islands in a 2D grid map of '1's (land) and '0's (water), where islands are formed by connecting adjacent lands horizontally or vertically and surrounded by water? Assume the grid's edges are surrounded by water.”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 61 YouTube interview reports.