Anduril’s Interview Process & Questions

The info below is based on conversations with Anduril engineers.

Anduril's Interview Process for Software Engineers: 3 Steps

Mid to senior-level engineers interviewing at Anduril can expect the following process:

• Recruiter call (30 minutes)
• Technical phone screen AND/OR Hiring manager call (1 hour)
• Onsite (4 hours)

Anduril has a hybrid process, which means that you might interview with a specific team or you might do team matching at the end. One engineer we spoke to who recently went through the process told us:

They seem to tailor the interviewing process to what you say you’re interested in at the company during the early rounds, so be careful about what you say you want. Stick to what you’re good at.

From our conversations, it seems that in certain cases you do interview for a specific role, but you could end up on multiple teams depending on how the process goes. If you are interviewing for a specific role, we were told by another engineer that you should:

Read up about their product and the relationship between the role and the product, they will ask questions very specific to the role and product.

Some of the engineers we spoke with had a hiring manager call instead of a technical phone screen, and some got both. More on that below.

General tips:

• They might ask you how comfortable you’d be working in the defense industry.
• LeetCode practice will help, as their coding problems are at a LeetCode medium level, although they like to add practical elements too.
• If you’re going for a role that involves robotics, you need to know robotics in detail, particularly for L5/L6 level roles. They will press you to discuss the technical aspects of robotics even if your main question is more coding or system design based.
• They don’t tend to hire for remote roles.

The entire process takes about 3-4 weeks, and we’ve heard it’s more enjoyable than the typical FAANG style interview process. From one of our users who recently interviewed with Anduril:

Their entire process seemed less formal than FAANG, more personable, more conversational.

They seem to be OK to move at your speed through the process. We’ve heard it can be done in as little as two weeks but that they don’t have a problem with you slowing things down.

AI Usage

AI use in Anduril interviews is strictly prohibited.

Step 1: Recruiter Call

Andurils’s recruiter call lasts 30 minutes, and it’s pretty standard fare – they’ll ask you about your previous experience, why you’re interested in Anduril, and what you’re looking for moving forward. They’ll also sometimes ask you about your qualms, if any, about working in the defence industry.

It’s really important, at this stage, to not reveal your salary expectations or where you are in the process with other companies. We’ve written a detailed post about salary negotiation that lays out exactly what to say if recruiters pressure you to name the first number.

Step 2: Technical Phone Screen / Hiring Manager Call

Sometimes you’ll get one or both of these. It seems to depend on the role you are interviewing for.

If you get the standard technical phone screen, you can expect LeetCode medium-level questions. It will be algorithms and data structures based, but they will put it into an Anduril context, e.g., drone management. One engineer told us:

The question is not difficult algorithmically, but the follow-up questions in terms of how to speed and scale it up were trickier.

If you end up getting the hiring manager call instead, the objective will be to show you are a fit for the role, technically speaking. They’ll ask questions about your resume and experience before throwing in a coding question that is practical for the role in question.

Step 3: Onsite

This will vary slightly by role but here’s what you can expect.

• Coding (1 hour). This interview will be conducted in CoderPad. For more detail about the kinds of questions to expect, see the Coding section below.
• Second coding (1 hour). For more detail about the kinds of questions to expect, see the Coding section below.
• System design (1 hour). This interview will be conducted in CoderPad or on a whiteboard if you go in person. They also sometimes use the whiteboard feature in Zoom. For more detail about the kinds of questions to expect, see the System Design section below.
• Behavioral (1 hour). For more info about what questions to expect, see the Behavioral section below.

Types of Interview Questions to Expect at Anduril

Coding

This will likely be algorithms and data structures-focused but will skew more practical than typical LeetCode questions. A sample question we heard was about a collection of robots, where they had tasks to perform, and you needed to keep track of the highest priority tasks. Others involved drone management or graph manipulation

You will have two coding rounds, and they’ll be quite similar.

Below are the technical topics you’re likely to encounter in Anduril. To compile this list, we did two things. First, we spoke to some current and former Anduril engineers. Then we cross-referenced all the anecdotes we heard with Glassdoor data AND our own data-set of mock interviews:

System Design

You might get a pretty industry standard question here, or it could be very practical, depending on the role you are interviewing for. Some of the standard questions we’ve heard are:

• Design Tinyurl
• Design Tetris

If you get a more practical round, it might be related to managing drones in the field, where you have to get a signal from the drone and then send it back instructions. If you get a practical question, you need to be prepared to discuss the technologies, hardware included at least at a high level. The rounds for L5/L6 roles seem to skew more practical.

Check out our guide to system design interviews to help you prepare.

Behavioral

The behavioral interview will be more conversational and less traditional than you might have seen at other companies. That said, it will still include the questions you’d expect in a behavioral interview. They will go over your resume and ask you about projects you’ve worked on in the past. Expect questions about the projects you’ve worked on and areas like:

• Their scale and scope
• Technical challenges and how you solved them
• Conflict that arose and how you handled it

You might also learn more about the type of projects they are working on for the team you are being matched with or interviewing for. If so you’ll have the chance to ask questions, but you’ll also be asked how you’d see yourself fit into the role.