Tesla Software Engineer interview questions

28 Software Engineers have shared notes from their Tesla interviews, with the questions they were asked in each round. That is 54% of the 52 Tesla interview notes on Screna AI.

28 Software Engineer interview notes

Tesla·Software Engineer·Onsite - Coding / Algorithms

Jul 2026
Tesla SWE coding round, one graph problem the whole time. Not the hardest interview I've done but I definitely fumbled my way through the BFS part before it clicked.
  • You have an n x n grid of 0s and 1s representing water and land. The grid contains exactly two islands. Find the minimum number of water cells you need to convert to land to connect the two islands.

“Took me a minute to even figure out how to separate the two islands first.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jul 2026
Tesla SWE interview that was heavier on stats than I expected. One question, but it had a lot of layers and I wasn't fully prepared for the multiple comparisons piece.
  • You have historical quality data for batteries randomly assigned to one of 5 groups. Each battery goes through 3 binary (pass/fail) quality tests. How would you determine which group has the best overall quality in a statistically rigorous way? Cover how you'd define a combined quality metric, handle unequal group sizes, quantify uncertainty, and deal with the multiple comparison problem.

“I started with the composite metric part and that went okay.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Online Assessment (OA)

Jul 2026
Tesla SWE interview that was basically a gauntlet of classic algorithm problems back to back. Nine questions total, covering everything from string parsing to graph traversal. Felt more like an OA than a conversation.
  • Implement an expression evaluator that parses a string of digits and operators (+, -, *, /) with spaces and returns the integer result. No parentheses. Division truncates toward zero. Do it in a single pass.
  • Given an array of positive integers, count how many index triplets (i < j < k) form the sides of a valid non-degenerate triangle. Aim for O(n^2) after sorting.
  • Merge a list of closed intervals, combining any that overlap or share an endpoint, and return the result sorted.
  • Count the number of connected land clusters in a grid of '1's and '0's, where connectivity is 4-directional.
  • Find the smallest missing positive integer in an unsorted array. Must run in O(n) time and O(1) extra space.
  • Return the maximum sum of any non-empty contiguous subarray. Optionally return the subarray's start and end indices.
  • Given an array of daily stock prices, find the maximum profit from a single buy followed by a single sell. Return 0 if no profitable trade exists.
  • Find the length of the longest sequence of consecutive integers in an unsorted array. Target average O(n) using hashing.
  • Given a number of courses and prerequisite pairs, determine if all courses can be completed. If yes, return a valid ordering. Handle up to 100,000 nodes and edges.

“The single-pass constraint is what makes this annoying.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jul 2026
Tesla data engineering interview, one SQL question that looks straightforward until you actually sit down and think about what 'one pass' means. Pretty focused technical screen, no fluff.
  • Given an orders table with columns order_id, status, amount, and date, write a single SQL query that computes in one pass: total revenue for completed orders per date, count of pending orders per date, and count of cancelled orders per date.

“The 'one pass' constraint is where it gets interesting.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jul 2026
Tesla software engineer interview that went pretty deep on HTTP fundamentals. One question but they really wanted you to know the details, not just rattle off method names.
  • Walk me through the HTTP request methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS). Which do you actually use day-to-day, and can you explain idempotency, safety, and common pitfalls?

“Started okay naming the methods but then they asked me to explain idempotency and I fumbled the distinction between safe and idempotent.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jul 2026
Tesla SWE technical screen, two coding questions back to back. Both were more involved than I expected for a phone round, lots of edge case discussion and they pushed on time/space complexity pretty hard.
  • Given a list of integers with length n, check whether it's a permutation of [0, 1, ..., n-1]. You must do it in-place with O(1) extra space, no hash sets, no sorting, and aim for O(n) time.
  • Implement a power function that computes base raised to an integer exponent without using any library exponentiation. It needs to run in O(log |exp|) time, handle negative exponents, zero cases, and the minimum 32-bit integer value for the exponent.

“I went straight to XOR and they seemed okay with that direction, but then they asked me to also handle out-of-range values and duplicates explicitly and I fumbled a bit.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Tesla SWE interview with a coding problem around building a key-value store that supports rollback. Not a lot of context in what was shared, but the core problem is a classic that shows up more than you'd expect.
  • Design and implement a key-value store that supports rollback functionality.

“This is the kind of problem where the basic get/set feels easy and then you realize the rollback part is where all the complexity lives.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Tesla data engineering interview with a recursive SQL problem that sounds straightforward until you're actually writing it out under pressure.
  • Given an org table with employee_id, manager_id, and name columns, write a query to find all direct and indirect reports under a specific manager at every level of depth. Return employee_id, manager_id, name, the depth level, and the full hierarchy path.

“Knew immediately it was a recursive CTE problem but fumbled the anchor member the first time.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Tesla SWE interview that went deep on a classic algorithm problem. They wanted the full arc: brute force first, then walk up to linear time, then squeeze out the extra space. Not a vibe check, more like a whiteboard lecture you're giving to yourself.
  • Implement a solution to the Trapping Rain Water problem. Start with a brute-force approach, explain its time and space complexity, then optimize to O(n) time with O(n) space, and finally discuss how you'd get it down to O(1) space.

“The brute force part was fine, nested loops, nothing to it.”

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Tesla·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Tesla SWE interview where they had me implement a task scheduler from scratch, runnable and everything. Not a design question, they wanted actual working code with a test showing tasks firing at the right times.
  • Implement a runnable task scheduler that lets clients add tasks at any time, where each task has a callback and a scheduled time. Tasks must not run before their scheduled time, must run in chronological order, and the scheduler should keep running and accept new tasks while active. Include a working example demonstrating correct timing.

“This took me a minute to even figure out where to start.”

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