T-Mobile · Primly Community

T-Mobile coding interview / online assessment, format and difficulty for SWE roles in 2026

corp_refugee · 8 replies

Just got through T-Mobile's technical screen process for a mid-level SWE role in May 2026. Here's the breakdown since this took me way too long to find before I went in.

For my role (mid-level, Bellevue team), there were two technical coding stages:

Stage 1: HackerRank OA Sent after the initial HR call. 90 minutes, 3 problems. All of mine were standard LeetCode medium difficulty: one string manipulation, one array/two-pointer, one graph BFS. No dynamic programming in my set, but I've seen others report a DP question at the senior level.

Language support is broad. I used JavaScript, which is fine for frontend roles. The OA is not proctored beyond a browser lockdown. Time management matters: 30 min per problem is tight if you don't recognize the pattern fast.

Stage 2: Live Coding Interview This was 45 minutes with one engineer on Google Meet. One problem, medium-hard LeetCode equivalent. Mine was a modified interval merging problem with a twist around overlapping time windows. They care a lot about talking through your approach before writing code. I spent 8 minutes talking through edge cases and the interviewer actively contributed, which I liked.

They explicitly said they don't expect you to finish under pressure, they want to see your thought process. I ran out of time on the optimal solution and got the offer anyway. The interviewer's last question was "what would you do differently if you had more time" which is a good sign they're evaluating your reasoning.

What to prep: LeetCode mediums, especially graphs and intervals. Know your time complexities and be able to explain them. They asked me to walk through a small test case by hand before running it.

Not the hardest coding interview I've done. Definitely below FAANG bar but above what I've seen from regional tech companies. The live coding interviewer was low-pressure and actually helpful.

8 replies

ux_uma

Did the OA have a time limit per problem or was it one 90-minute window you could split however you wanted?

sec_sasha

One shared 90-minute window, you can move between problems. I'd recommend doing a fast pass on all three first to triage difficulty before committing time to the hard one.

pivot_pat

This is really helpful. I'm coming from a PM background with self-taught coding skills. The medium LeetCode bar sounds manageable if I focus on the patterns. Did they ask anything about T-Mobile's products or was it purely algorithmic?

marketer_mei

Purely algorithmic in both coding stages. Product/behavioral stuff is in separate rounds. Totally separate tracks.

qa_quinn

Any testing-oriented questions? Like write test cases for this function, or did they just want passing code?

content_cole

The OA: no explicit test-writing questions, just your code against hidden test cases. Live round: the interviewer asked me to walk through a test case manually, which is close enough. Not a full TDD exercise.

visa_vik

How long between completing the OA and hearing about the live round? I'm on a tight timeline right now.

hardware_hugo

About 10 days for me. HR said they batch reviews. Emailing your recruiter to flag timeline urgency apparently does work, a friend got moved up to 5 days when they explained their situation.