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Growth · Software Engineer Interview Guide

How to Pass the Seed digital Software Engineer Interview in 2026

The Seed digital DNA (TL;DR)

Seed digital values candidates who demonstrate creative problem-solving, strategic thinking in digital advertising, and a strong results-orientation. They seek individuals who can drive measurable impact for clients and adapt to evolving ad tech landscapes effectively.

The Seed digital Interview Loop

Your onsite loop will typically consist of 5 rounds.

  1. 1

    Round 1

    Recruiter Screen
    Motivation, role fit, logistics.
  2. 2

    Round 2

    Coding Screen
    LeetCode-medium algorithmic problems under time pressure.
  3. 3

    Round 3

    System Design
    Distributed systems, trade-offs at scale, architecture under constraints.
  4. 4

    Round 4

    Onsite Coding
    LeetCode-hard, debugging, code clarity, edge cases.
  5. 5

    Round 5

    Behavioral / Leadership
    Past evidence of ownership, influence, resolving conflict.

The Danger Zone: Top Reasons Candidates Fail

Based on our database of Seed digital interview outcomes, avoid these common traps:

  • Not demonstrating an ability to understand or empathize with the other party's perspective.
  • Not demonstrating a clear resolution or positive outcome.
  • Failing to articulate the specific steps taken to build consensus or address concerns.
  • Not detailing the specific tactics used to influence others (e.g., data, empathy, compromise).

Test Yourself: Real Seed digital Questions

Three real prompts pulled from our database.

Type · Influence

Describe a situation where you had to influence a stakeholder or team to adopt your idea or approach, especially when they were initially resistant.

Type · Past Experience

Tell me about a time you had to influence a cross-functional team (e.g., engineering, sales, marketing) to adopt a new product or strategy they were initially resistant to. What was your approach, and what was the outcome?

Type · Behavioral

Tell me about a time you had to work with a difficult stakeholder (e.g., product manager, designer) to deliver a feature. How did you manage the relationship and ensure the project's success?

+ many more questions, signals, and worked examples

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Seed digital Interview Question Bank

A sample from our database, grouped by round. Sign up to see the full set.

9 of 19 questions shown

1

Recruiter Screen

1
  1. 1

    Type · Motivation

    What interests you about working at Seed Digital, specifically within the advertising technology space, and how do you see your skills contributing to our growth?
2

Coding Screen

3
  1. 2

    Type · Algorithmic

    Given a stream of ad impression events, each with a timestamp and a user ID, design an algorithm to calculate the number of unique users who saw an ad in the last hour. Assume the stream can be very large.
  2. 3

    Type · Algorithmic

    You have a list of user segments and a list of ads. Each ad can be targeted to multiple segments. Write a function to find all ads that can be shown to a given user, based on the segments the user belongs to.
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
3

System Design

3
  1. 4

    Type · System Design

    Design a real-time bidding (RTB) system for ad impressions. Consider the components involved, data flow, latency requirements, and scalability.
  2. 5

    Type · System Design

    Design a system to track ad campaign performance and generate reports. What data would you collect, how would you store it, and how would you process it for reporting?
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
4

Onsite Coding

3
  1. 6

    Type · Algorithmic

    Given a list of user IDs and their associated conversion events (e.g., purchase, sign-up), write a function to calculate the conversion rate for a specific campaign. Ensure your code is clean, handles edge cases, and is well-tested.
  2. 7

    Type · Debugging

    A user reports that ads are not displaying correctly for a specific segment. Here's a simplified version of the ad selection logic. Find and fix the bug.
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
5

Behavioral / Leadership

9
  1. 8

    Type · Past Experience

    Tell me about a time you had to influence a cross-functional team (e.g., engineering, sales, marketing) to adopt a new product or strategy they were initially resistant to. What was your approach, and what was the outcome?
  2. 9

    Type · Conflict Resolution

    Tell me about a time you had a significant disagreement with a colleague or stakeholder. How did you approach the situation, and what was the resolution?
  3. + 7 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)

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Interview tracks at Seed digital

How Seed digital's DNA translates across functions. Pick your role.

SWEs at Seed digital should emphasize experience with ad tech integration, data analytics platforms, custom reporting tools, or internal workflow automation. Highlight skills in relevant APIs, data pipelines, and scalable solutions for advertising operations.

Influence

Describe a situation where you had to influence a stakeholder or team to adopt your idea or approach, especially when they were initially resistant.

Past Experience

Tell me about a time you had to influence a cross-functional team (e.g., engineering, sales, marketing) to adopt a new product or strategy they were initially resistant to. What was your approach, and what was the outcome?

+ 1 more

Unlock the Software Engineer grading rubric for Seed digital

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Compare Seed digital with similar employers

Same DNA, different bar. Browse the closest companies in our database and see how their loops differ.

Practice Seed digital interviews end-to-end

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