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AT&T interview notes, page 3 of 6

Large Enterprises

Most of these AT&T write-ups come from Software Engineers (56), then Data Scientists (1). The most reported rounds are the technical phone screen (15), the hiring manager screen (14), the system design round (7) and the multi-round onsite (6).

57 interview notes · updated Oct 2026

AT&T·Software Engineer·Onsite - Multi Round

Jun 2026
Two rounds, coding and system design. The coding round was fine, nothing to write home about. The system design round was a different story: spent most of it trying to extract basic requirements from an interviewer who just wouldn't engage, and walked out not even knowing what I was supposed to be designing.
  • Design a system (requirements intentionally left vague, no direct answers given to clarifying questions).
  • Coding problem involving file reading using an obscure built-in, with the core task being to build a map and perform aggregation.

“Twenty minutes of clarifying questions and I still couldn't pin down what the functional requirements were.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Technical phone screen where they gave me a rate limiter implementation problem. Pretty focused coding session, no fluff, just build the thing and explain your choices.
  • Implement a token bucket rate limiter class with a method that accepts a token count and a timeout. The bucket starts full at 1000 tokens, refills continuously at 10 tokens per second up to the max, and each call consumes tokens. If there aren't enough tokens, the method should wait up to the given timeout before giving up and returning false.

“I knew the token bucket concept but blanked a bit on the continuous refill part.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Phone screen for a software engineer role, just one coding question with a follow-up variant. Pretty light as far as technical screens go.
  • Given a list of entries each containing a timestamp and an intensity value, plus a threshold, return all contiguous time periods where the intensity exceeds that threshold.

“Not a hard problem once you see it as a simple scan and merge intervals kind of thing.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Technical phone screen for a Software Engineer role that ended with a rejection letter the same afternoon. The problem itself was interesting but the interviewer's requirements turned out to be contradictory, and I couldn't figure out what they actually wanted in time.
  • Design and implement an in-memory LRU cache with per-entry TTL and bounded capacity in C++. Expired entries must never be returned. When evicting, expired entries should be removed before valid LRU entries. Target O(1) average time for get and put.

“The contradiction here wrecked me.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Onsite - System Design / Architecture

Jun 2026
System design round focused entirely on a flight ticket booking system. Pretty deep dive, went from schema design all the way into B-tree internals and concurrency issues around double booking.
  • Design the database schema for a flight ticket booking system. What tables would you create and how would they relate to each other?
  • What indexes would you build on these tables, and why?
  • Can you explain how a B-tree index works internally?
  • Walk through the full UX flow and the backend queries involved when a user books a flight.
  • How would you prevent double booking when two users try to reserve the same seat at the same time?

“Went with Flight, Passenger, and Flight_ticket tables which felt pretty natural.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Hiring Manager Screen

Jul 2026
Chaotic logistics before the call even started, then two hiring managers who seemed to want a candidate to have a technical manual memorized word for word. Fifteen years of experience and I left feeling like an idiot because I couldn't recite state-specific form names off the top of my head.
  • In Pennsylvania, how would you handle a specific set of highly unusual circumstances involving [technical edge case]?
  • What is the specific percentage figure that applies in Iowa for [technical rule]?
  • What is the name of the form used in Oregon for [specific process]?

“This is where things went sideways.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Recruiter / HR Screen

Jul 2026
Went through an HR screen where things got a little tense when they pushed me on competing offers. Somehow walked away okay, mostly because the technical side went well and the tech interviewer stepped in at the right moment.
  • Do you have any other offers, and if so, where and for how much?

“Said yes to having other offers, then refused to share details.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Hiring Manager Screen

Jul 2026
Had a hiring manager interview that was supposed to be mostly behavioral, then got blindsided by a live coding problem. Solved it fine but barely said a word while doing it, and two days later got the rejection email.
  • Given a coding problem presented live, implement a working solution and walk through its time and space complexity.

“Got through the problem fine technically.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Onsite - System Design / Architecture

Jul 2026
Went into what I thought was a standard system design round with the TL and ended up with the manager crashing the session and basically overriding everything the TL was nodding along to. Left more confused about their team dynamic than anything I got wrong technically.
  • Design a system to meet a set of requirements that kept shifting throughout the interview.

“Started fine, clarified scope with the TL, got agreement on everything.”

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AT&T·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jul 2026
Rough technical screen where the interviewer seemed combative from the jump, questioned the relevance of my current product, and then basically steamrolled me through a coding problem until they cut the session short with time still on the clock. Left feeling less like I failed and more like I'd been set up to.
  • Walk me through your current product and explain why it's actually needed.
  • Solve a coding problem (LeetCode medium variant) and explain your approach as you go.

“Went through the use cases and they pushed back hard, like the whole thing was a waste of time.”

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