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Netflix interview notes, page 8 of 20

FAANG / Big Tech

Most of these Netflix write-ups come from Software Engineers (136), then Data Scientists (23) and Product Managers (16). The most reported rounds are the technical phone screen (94), the system design round (48), the product sense round (14) and the behavioral / leadership round (11).

191 interview notes · updated Jul 2026

Netflix·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

May 2026
Netflix software engineering interview focused on a design and implementation problem around a command executor pattern. Pretty classic OOP/design territory but they pushed into some interesting follow-up territory that I wasn't fully prepared for.
  • Design and implement a command executor that supports execute and undo operations, using a Command interface so that concrete command types can plug in without the executor knowing their internals.
  • How would you extend this system to support redo, multi-step undo, batching commands into a single transaction, and persisting or replaying the command log?

“I knew the stack-based undo pattern going in, so the core implementation wasn't the hard part.”

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Netflix·Software Engineer·Onsite - System Design / Architecture

May 2026
Netflix system design round focused entirely on data modeling for an advertiser intake system. Dense question, lots of moving parts, and I felt like I was playing catch-up the whole time.
  • Design the data model for an advertiser intake system. Define the core entities like organization, account, user seats, campaigns, ad groups, creatives, budgets, targeting, frequency caps, billing, and approvals. Walk through ERD-level tables with primary and foreign keys.
  • How would you approach normalization versus denormalization trade-offs in this schema, and how does that decision change under multi-tenancy with row-level security requirements?
  • How would your schema handle configuration versioning and auditability, particularly for entities that change over time like targeting rules or budget flights?
  • How would you implement soft deletes in this schema, and what complications does that introduce for unique constraints and foreign key integrity?
  • How would you design the schema to support idempotent imports, for example when an advertiser submits the same intake form twice or a bulk upload is retried?
  • How does your schema design support validation rules and partial onboarding, where an advertiser might submit incomplete data across multiple sessions?

“I started with org and account and felt okay, but the moment they asked me to wire in frequency cap policy as its own entity I kind of froze.”

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Netflix·Software Engineer·Onsite - System Design / Architecture

May 2026
Netflix system design round for a software engineering role. One question, focused entirely on ads frequency capping with a rolling window. The expectation to walk through both read and write paths clearly made it more involved than I expected.
  • Design an ads frequency capping system using a rolling window. Walk through the read and write paths clearly.

“The rolling window part is where I got a bit tangled.”

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Netflix·Software Engineer·Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership

May 2026
Netflix behavioral loop, pretty intense focus on ownership and technical depth together. Three prompts but each one had real follow-up pressure behind it, not just checkbox stuff.
  • Walk me through a project you led from start to finish. What was your role and what was the measurable impact?
  • Tell me about a hard debugging problem you worked through. What was the root cause, how did you contain it, and what happened after?
  • Describe a time you gave constructive feedback to a peer or someone you managed. How did you approach it and what came of it?

“I had a solid example ready but fumbled the impact numbers partway through.”

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Netflix·Product Manager·Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy

May 2026
PM strategy question for Netflix, specifically about international expansion risk into China. Short and focused, probably a screen or strategy round.
  • What risks would Netflix face if it expanded into China?

“This one is deceptively wide.”

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Netflix·Machine Learning Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

May 2026
Netflix ML Engineer screen, got a word frequency counter problem which felt more like a warmup than a real challenge. Clean enough problem but I kept second-guessing my design choices out loud which probably didn't help.
  • Design and implement a class that tracks word frequencies from a continuous stream of text, supporting methods to add text, retrieve the count for a specific word, and return all word counts.

“Went with a dictionary under the hood, nothing fancy.”

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Netflix·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

May 2026
Netflix SWE interview with a graph/scheduling problem that looked like a standard topological sort but had enough follow-ups to keep you on your toes for a while.
  • Given N tasks and a list of directed dependency pairs, return one valid execution order satisfying all dependencies, or an empty list if no valid order exists due to a cycle.
  • If multiple valid topological orderings exist, how would you return the lexicographically smallest one?
  • How would you enumerate all valid topological orderings of the task graph?
  • What are the time and space complexities of your topological sort approach?

“Classic topological sort.”

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Netflix·Data Scientist·Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership

May 2026
Brutal Netflix data scientist loop that stretched across multiple rounds and manager changes before ending in a rejection. The behavioral bar here is genuinely different from anywhere else I've interviewed, and this one question basically ate the whole session.
  • Tell me about a time a senior stakeholder or interviewer was dismissive or adversarial toward you. How did you maintain candor and high standards while defusing the power dynamic, pulling out concrete requirements, and keeping the conversation focused on outcomes? Walk me through exact phrases you used, a follow-up email you'd send within 24 hours, and the measurable signals you put in place to avoid misalignment later. And if you went through months of interviews with multiple manager changes and still got rejected, what retrospective would you run, what data would you collect, and what would your 30-day improvement plan look like?

“This question is basically four questions stapled together and they absolutely expect you to hit all of them.”

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Netflix·Software Engineer·Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership

May 2026
Behavioral round at Netflix for a software engineering role, focused pretty heavily on conflict and how you handle pushback. Two questions, both in the same vein, and the whole thing felt like they were probing for whether you actually listen or just wait for your turn to talk.
  • Tell me about a time you had a significant conflict at work with a peer, manager, or cross-team partner, and how you handled it.
  • Describe a time you were directly challenged on a technical decision or a call you made. How did you respond, and what was the outcome?

“I went with a story about a disagreement with a partner team over who owned a particular API contract.”

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Netflix·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

May 2026
Netflix SWE interview with a testing strategy question that sounds straightforward but has a lot of hidden depth once you actually try to answer it.
  • In a large codebase, how do you determine which code paths or branches are the most critical to test, and what drives that decision?

“I went straight to 'test the happy path and error handling' and immediately felt like that was too shallow.”

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