Applying for DoorDash's 2026 new grad SWE roles right now and spent the last two weeks trying to figure out what to actually study. Going to document what I've gathered.
The loop for new grad / entry-level SWE (I think they call it L3 internally) seems to be: OA (online assessment): Two Leetcode-style problems, 90 minutes. From what I've read it's usually one medium and one medium-hard. Graph problems and dynamic programming seem to come up. Standard HackerRank format. Phone screen (technical, 45 min): One coding problem, sometimes two easier ones. Python or Java, whatever you prefer. Interviewer is an engineer, not a recruiter. They do care about communication, not just the answer. Onsite (4 rounds, virtual): Two coding rounds, one behavioral, one "engineering fundamentals" which is basically system design lite. For new grads the system design is not expected to be deep, more like "how would you store user preferences" or "walk me through how a web request works."
For prep: I've been doing Neetcode 150, focusing heavily on arrays/hashmaps/trees/graphs. A few people in other threads mentioned DoorDash likes questions involving queues and priority queues, which makes sense given their logistics domain.
Behavioral for new grads: they're not expecting you to have led teams. They want to know how you handled a difficult project, a disagreement with a teammate, and a failure. Keep it honest. My sense is they'd rather hear a real story from a class project than a polished BS one.
The internship-to-new-grad conversion rate I've heard is decent but not automatic, so even interns prep the loop.
Anyone have recent OA experience from 2025/2026? Would love to know if the problem difficulty has shifted at all.