Company interview loops.

A practical guide to senior software engineering loops at six FAANG-tier companies. Round-by-round breakdown, the quirks every candidate should know, and the signal each company actually grades on. Where information is inferred from candidate reports rather than public knowledge, we say so.

The loop shape changes over time and by org within a company — these are the shapes we've seen reliably in 2025. Ask your recruiter to confirm round structure before the loop; they almost always will.

Google

L4 → L5 → L6

Algorithm-heavy loops with a long-tradition system-design round at L5+. Strong emphasis on coding fundamentals and "Googliness" (behavioural) plus a hiring-committee review at the end.

Meta (Facebook)

E4 → E5 → E6

Strict round-typing: each round tests one specific signal. Coding rounds expect runnable code (CoderPad). System design at E5+ has a defined rubric — interviewers all grade against the same axes.

Amazon

L5 → L6 → L7

Leadership Principles are the actual signal. Every round opens with LP questions. Coding and system design exist, but a perfect technical loop with weak LP answers usually loses to an average technical loop with strong ones.

Apple

ICT3 → ICT4 → ICT5

Highly team-specific. Apple is a federation of teams, not a single hiring process. The platform team, the OS team, the apps team, and the silicon team all run different loops. Expect deep technical questions tied to the team's domain.

Netflix

Senior → Staff → Principal

Famously selective. Loops are technically deep, behaviourally direct. Netflix's "no rule-book" culture means rounds vary by team, but the bar is consistently very high. Pay is correspondingly above market.

Stripe

L2 → L3 → L4 → L5

API-focused company; loops mirror that. Strong emphasis on production-quality coding (write code that could ship) and on API design as a system-design subdiscipline.

How to use this guide

Before a loop, find the relevant company. Read the summary. Expand the detail. Note the quirks specifically — those are the gotchas candidates most often hit. The "what they're grading on" section is the highest-signal sentence on the page; everything else is structural.

This guide doesn't replace asking your recruiter directly. Every recruiter we've worked with will tell you the round structure if you ask; most will also share the rubric (Meta) or the LP focus (Amazon). The information is not secret — it's just unevenly distributed.

What changes by company, what doesn't

The system-design round shape is the most stable across companies. The fourteen prompts in our system-design simulator are equally applicable at Google, Meta, Amazon, Stripe, and Netflix. The 45-minute, 7-phase structure is too. The grading rubric varies, but the underlying skill is the same.

The behavioural round is the most company-specific. Amazon's Leadership Principles, Meta's "Jedi" framework, Netflix's culture-deck rounds, and Apple's domain-anchored behaviourals all grade different things. This is the part of the loop most worth tailoring for.

Coding rounds vary in tooling more than in content. Google whiteboards (no run); Meta and Stripe expect runnable code; Amazon and Apple are in between. The same problems work — but practise in the tool you'll face.

Caveats

Loop structure changes. Companies reorganise, pause hiring, change rubrics. This guide reflects what we've seen in 2025 — if you're reading this two years later, verify with your recruiter.

Org-level variation is real. Within Google, search team and infra team run different sub-loops. Within Amazon, AWS and retail differ in technical emphasis. We've described the modal loop per company; your specific team may diverge.

Levelling translates poorly across companies. Google L5 ≠ Meta E5 ≠ Amazon L6 in scope or compensation. See L5 vs L6 vs staff differences for a more honest mapping.

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