10 Anduril Software Engineer (New Grad) Interview Questions (2026)
Anduril's new-grad SWE loop in 2026 is a recruiter screen, one technical phone screen, and a four to five round virtual onsite covering coding, lightweight design, and behavioral. Anduril builds defense software with hardware-in-the-loop systems; engineers should expect questions that touch on systems thinking and real-time constraints.
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Loop overview
New-grad candidates report a 5-8 week timeline in 2026 due to security clearance considerations. Phone screen is 60 minutes coding. Onsite is two coding rounds, one lightweight design or systems round, one behavioral, and sometimes a project deep-dive. US citizenship is typically required for most roles due to ITAR.
Behavioral (4)
Why Anduril? What about defense technology interests you?
Frequently askedOutline
Anduril is mission-driven and not for every engineer. Be honest about your motivations and what aspects appeal (autonomous systems, accelerated procurement, working close to hardware, the engineering culture). Avoid pretending to be more (or less) mission-aligned than you are. Anduril screens for genuine fit.
Tell me about a time you worked on a project with hard real-time constraints.
Occasionally askedOutline
STAR. Pick a project where latency or determinism mattered (a game, an embedded system, a real-time control loop). Concrete: the constraint (e.g., 16ms frame budget), how you measured, what you cut to meet the budget. If you don't have a hard-real-time story, pick one with strict performance budgets and frame it that way.
Tell me about a time you debugged a non-deterministic bug.
Frequently askedOutline
STAR. Race condition, timing-dependent issue, hardware-flaky test. Show your methodology: reproducing reliably (often the hardest part), bisecting, hypothesis-testing, logging strategy. Anduril deals with hardware and real-time systems where flakiness is real. Engineers who panic at intermittent bugs do not fit.
Walk me through a project on your resume in depth.
Frequently askedOutline
Pick a project you know cold. Cover problem, design, key decisions, tradeoffs, what went wrong, what you'd change. Anduril interviewers go deep — be ready for follow-ups on specific architecture choices, debugging stories, performance work. Knowing one project three layers down beats knowing five superficially.
Coding (LeetCode patterns) (2)
Given a 2D grid representing terrain, find the lowest-cost path from start to goal (cost = sum of cell values).
Frequently askedOutline
Dijkstra with a min-heap of (cost, cell). For grids with non-negative weights, BFS with priority works. Track visited. O((rows*cols) log (rows*cols)). Variant: A* with a heuristic (Manhattan distance to goal). Discuss when A* beats Dijkstra. Real-world relevance: route planning.
Implement a function that returns whether a string of brackets and operators forms a valid expression.
Frequently askedOutline
Stack-based validation. Track expected next token (operator, operand, opening, closing). Push opens, pop on closes, check matching. End: stack empty and last token is operand. O(n) time, O(n) space. Edge cases: empty string, unbalanced, operators at boundaries.
Technical (3)
Given a stream of sensor readings, implement a moving average over the last N samples.
Frequently askedOutline
Ring buffer of size N + running sum. On each insert: subtract the value being evicted, add the new one. Average = sum / count. O(1) per insert. Discuss numerical precision over long streams (drift) and how to mitigate (periodic recompute). Anduril deals with real-time sensor data.
Implement a function that detects when a value crosses a threshold in a stream (with debouncing).
Frequently askedOutline
Track current state (above/below). On each sample: if state changed, start a timer; if it stays changed for the debounce window, emit a crossing event and update state. Discuss the false-positive/missed-event tradeoff with window size. Walk through with a small example. Maps to detection systems.
Given a list of events with timestamps and a sliding time window, return events within each window.
Occasionally askedOutline
Two-pointer sliding window over time-sorted events. Maintain a deque or pointers (start, end). Slide end forward, slide start forward to evict events outside the window. O(n) per pass. Discuss how to handle out-of-order arrivals (sort or use a heap-based window).
System / object-oriented design (1)
Design a system that publishes sensor data to multiple subscribers with different sample rates.
Occasionally askedOutline
Publisher-subscriber with per-subscriber rate-decimation. Either the publisher knows each subscriber's rate (push) or each subscriber pulls at its own rate from a shared buffer. Discuss backpressure: what happens when a subscriber is slow? Drop, queue, or block? Anduril ships pub/sub for sensor and command streams.
Anduril interview tips
- Most Anduril roles require US citizenship due to ITAR/export-control regulations. Confirm with your recruiter before investing time in the loop.
- Anduril is mission-driven. The 'why Anduril' question is unavoidable and the bar for genuine answers is high. Don't pretend to fit if you don't.
- Real-time and hardware-in-the-loop thinking helps. Brush up on basics: latency vs throughput, deterministic execution, sensor data handling, debouncing.
- Lightweight design rounds favor systems thinking — pub/sub, real-time pipelines, sensor fusion — over distributed web systems. Adjust your prep accordingly.
- Compensation is competitive for defense tech (SoCal + select hubs). Equity structure in defense companies has unique considerations — read the offer carefully.
Frequently asked questions
How long is Anduril's SWE new-grad interview process in 2026?
Most reports show 5-8 weeks from recruiter screen to offer. Security and citizenship verification adds time on the back end.
Do I need US citizenship to work at Anduril?
Most roles require US citizenship due to ITAR and export-control regulations. Some roles may accept permanent residents. Confirm with your recruiter.
Does Anduril ask system design for new-grad SWE?
Yes, but lightweight — usually pub/sub or real-time pipeline design rather than full distributed web systems.
What programming languages does Anduril use?
Anduril's stack includes C++, Rust, Python, and TypeScript depending on the system. New-grad interviews are language-agnostic — use what you know best.
Is Anduril remote-friendly?
Most engineering roles are on-site in SoCal (Costa Mesa, Irvine) or other defense hubs. Some software-only roles allow hybrid. Confirm with your recruiter.
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