Insights from senior ML engineers on how top AI companies are interviewing in 2026.
A new system design question is appearing in ML loops with almost no prep material for it. Here is a worked treatment of how a strong answer moves through the problem.
The highest-signal question in an LLM system design loop is the one that sounds like a wind-down: how do you know it works? Here is the full answer, and where most collapse.
The recommendation feed question appears in nearly every ML system design loop. The architecture is the easy half — here's what actually separates a hire from a no-hire.
Every candidate knows the RAG happy path. The staff+ bar is knowing where it breaks. These are the seven failure modes interviewers are actually grading.
Meta eliminated 8,000 positions and redirected 10,000 employees into AI agent teams. The structural shift driving it is what every software engineer needs to understand.
The algo round isn't dead, but its weight in hire/no-hire decisions has collapsed. Here's what replaced it in 2026 and how ML interview prep should change.