went through okta's onsite loop in q1 2026 for a senior backend SWE position. the loop was fully virtual. here's what each round looked like:
round 1: technical phone screen (live coding) 45 minutes. one medium problem, one easy. java was fine, they don't care about language as long as you're fluent. the interviewer was quiet and let me work, only probed when i stalled. passed into the onsite from here.
round 2: system design (60 min) asked to design an SSO/SAML flow from scratch. this makes total sense given what okta does. you need to know: auth protocols (SAML, OIDC/OAuth2 at a high level), token lifecycle, rate limiting, caching session state, and how you'd handle edge cases like expired sessions. you don't need to be a security expert but you need to think about the auth layer not as a black box.
round 3: coding (45 min) two problems. first was data structure design (LRU cache style). second was a graph problem. i used python. clean solutions mattered more than micro-optimizations.
round 4: behavioral (45 min) four standard STAR questions. i got: tell me about a time you disagreed with your team's technical direction describe a project you delivered late and what you'd change how have you handled a situation where requirements changed mid-sprint tell me about a time you had to learn something completely new quickly
round 5: 'bar raiser' style round (30 min) not labeled as bar raiser but felt like one. more senior interviewer, broader questions about how i think about technical tradeoffs and architecture. less structured.
debrief timeline: got feedback in 4 business days. offer came 2 days after that.
overall the loop was fair. the system design round is where people get sorted. if your auth/identity knowledge is thin, study OIDC before you go in.