Anduril software engineering interview questions

The Process

Four rounds, then a clearance queue that outlasts all of them

01

30 minVideo call

Recruiter screen

The defence question starts here rather than at the end, and the eligibility check runs on the same call: US person status, clearance eligibility, and which product line you would sit on.

Have a reason for defense you can defend.
Curiosity about hard problems is the answer everybody gives. They are listening for something personal that survives two follow ups.
Ask which product line the team sits on.
Lattice, Ghost, Fury, Dive and Sentry are different engineering jobs. The interview follows the hardware the team ships.
Check the citizenship requirement early.
Many roles need US person status or clearance eligibility. Finding that out in week four wastes the whole loop.

02

60 to 90 minHackerRank or live

Technical screen

One deliberately ambiguous coding problem, run by a hiring manager or an engineer. Clarifying the prompt is part of the assessment, and the constraints escalate once you start writing.

Ask what the prompt is missing.
The problem is under specified on purpose. Candidates who start coding before they clarify the constraints are marked down for it.
Expect the constraints to change.
New requirements land mid round. Structure the first version so the second one is an edit rather than a rewrite.
Work that touched real hardware lands.
A physical system, a radio link or an immovable deadline reads better here than a clean web service with no consequences.

03

4 to 6 roundsOne dayNo AI tools

The onsite loop

Four to six sessions: one or two coding rounds under embedded and real time constraints, a design round on sensor fusion and graceful degradation, a domain depth round, and a mission alignment round with a senior leader inside the loop.

Write it in the language you claim.
C++ is the default on vehicle and embedded teams. Saying you know it and then reaching for Python is noticed.
Handle the degraded case first.
Dropped packets, late data and clock skew are the point of the question. A clean happy path alone scores as incomplete.
The mission round sits inside the loop.
It is not a wrap up afterwards. A senior leader scores whether you want this work specifically, on the same day as the technical rounds.

04

1 to 2 weeksInternal debriefNo candidate round

Decision and offer

One to two weeks of internal debrief with nothing for you to sit. If you are strong but wrong for the first team, your profile circulates to other product lines rather than being closed out.

Ask which instrument you are getting.
New joiners are granted RSUs on a four year vest. Options survive only for earlier staff, so two engineers on one team can hold different things.
Ask when the last liquidity event was.
The units are private and there is no market to sell into. Only a company run event turns any of it into money.
A no from one team is not a no.
Profiles circulate between product lines, so a strong loop with a poor team fit often comes back as a different conversation.

05

6 to 12 monthsNot an interview

Clearance processing

Not a round, and not scored by Anduril. A Secret or Top Secret investigation is run by the US government, takes six to twelve months, and gates the start date on a large share of roles.

Ask about clearance in stage one.
It is the longest pole on the whole process. A cleared role you only hear about in week four can push your start date out by most of a year.
Sponsorship is close to nonexistent.
Anduril has filed six visa applications in its entire history. If you need sponsorship the constraint is structural, not a policy that might bend.
Not every role needs a clearance.
Ask whether the team's work sits on the uncleared side. It is the difference between starting next month and starting next year.

Levels and Pay

Most of the offer is stock you cannot sell yet

Pick a level to see how the package splits, what changes by city, and what the loop actually asks of you at that band.

Costa Mesa

Seattle

Boston

Fort Collins

Level	Experience	Total comp
Software EngineerL3Entry	0 to 2 yrs	~$200K
Software EngineerL4Mid	2 to 5 yrs	~$280K
Senior EngineerL5Senior	5 to 8 yrs	~$375K
Staff EngineerL6Staff	8 to 12 yrs	~$440K
Principal EngineerL7Principal	12+ yrs	~$500K

Anduril pays one national band, so switching city moves the map pin and nothing else.

Live Question Feed

What Anduril is asking right now

25 questions · new ones added every 7 days

25 Verified

CODING

Write a fixed capacity ring buffer for sensor frames that drops the oldest frame under back pressure, then make it thread safe.

Technical screen

60 min

CoderPad

Reported 7 times

Open

SYSTEM DESIGN

Design fleet coordination for fifty autonomous aircraft over intermittent links with partial GPS and manual override.

Locked

MISSION FIT

Which Anduril product do you find least convincing, and what would you change about it?

Locked

CODING

Parse a lossy telemetry stream, interpolate the missing samples, and never emit a position out of order.

Locked

SYSTEM DESIGN

Design the backend for an operator console with thousands of live feeds and support for air gapped sites.

Locked

CODING

Fuse radar and camera detections into one track identity when the two sensors disagree.

Locked

BEHAVIORAL

Tell me about a system you took from prototype to fielded hardware with no playbook.

Locked

DEEP DIVE

Walk through a real time system you owned and defend the latency budget you chose.

Locked

MISSION FIT

Why defense, and why now? Give the reasoning rather than the pitch.

Locked

24 more questions available

The exact questions Anduril is asking this week, tagged by round and difficulty.

Unlock All 25 Questions

Each question stays in the bank for 14 days, so everything here was asked in the last 14 days. Candidates who see them first pass at 3.2 times the normal rate.

Get Full Access

The Unfair Advantage

Why this actually works

01

Real questions, not guesses

Collected from engineers who sat the loop, then cross validated against other intel sources.

02

Fresh every week

The database updates every 7 days, so you never study stale problems.

03

Covers every round

Coding, systems design, embedded and real time rounds, the deep dive and the mission fit round.

04

120+ companies tracked

Also interviewing at Palantir, SpaceX or Applied Intuition? We have their questions too.

05

Difficulty and pattern data

Tagged by difficulty, round and category, so you know where prep time goes.

06

Candidate verified only

Reported by a candidate, then cross verified against multiple data points.

3.2×

Higher pass rate

120+

Companies tracked

3.2K+

Engineers using this

FAQ

Common questions

How are the questions sourced?

Directly from engineers who interviewed at Anduril, then cross validated against other intel sources into a stack ranked list.

How often are questions updated?

We add new questions every 7 days and retire each one after 14 days, so the bank turns over twice in the window it covers. Anduril prompts track the product line, so a new Ghost or Fury variant turns into a fresh design question within weeks.

Does Anduril ask LeetCode questions?

Rarely in that shape. The coding rounds are implementation work in C++ or Python framed around sensor feeds, dropped packets and timing budgets rather than puzzle patterns.

Can I use AI tools in the interview?

Not in live rounds. Anduril sets it out in the candidate instructions, and the interviewer is watching the editor while you type.

What is the mission fit round?

A scored conversation with a leader about why you want to build weapons. Anduril treats it as a real gate, so strong engineers do get turned down there.

What does Anduril pay an L4 Software Engineer?

Around $280K in Costa Mesa, and the same in Seattle and Boston, because Anduril pays one national band. Roughly 38 percent of that is equity in a private company with no market to sell into.

How long does the process take?

Three to four weeks for the loop itself, which is fast for the money involved. If the role needs a clearance, the investigation that follows runs six to twelve months and gates your start date.

Is this just for Anduril?

No. GothamLoop covers 120+ companies including Palantir, SpaceX, Applied Intuition, Scale AI and Shield AI.

The Anduril interview cheat code nobody talks about

Four rounds, then a clearance queue that outlasts all of them

Recruiter screen

Technical screen

The onsite loop

Decision and offer

Clearance processing

Most of the offer is stock you cannot sell yet

What Anduril is asking right now

Why this actually works

Real questions, not guesses

Fresh every week

Covers every round

120+ companies tracked

Difficulty and pattern data

Candidate verified only

Common questions

Pricing plan

Company Interview Guides