A Software Engineer at Seatgeek plays a critical role in building and scaling the technology that powers the live entertainment industry. From high-demand ticket releases for major sports leagues to real-time seat mapping for concert venues, engineers here tackle complex, high-concurrency challenges. The engineering team is responsible for maintaining a seamless marketplace experience for millions of fans while simultaneously building robust enterprise ticketing software used by stadium operators globally. As a Software Engineer, you will work on products that directly impact how people discover, buy, and use tickets. This involves optimizing search algorithms, designing resilient APIs, and managing the massive traffic spikes that occur during high-profile ticket sales. Your work will span across various backend services, frontend web applications, and mobile platforms, requiring a strong focus on system reliability, performance, and user-centric design. What makes this position both exciting and demanding is the unique scale of the ticket marketplace. You will solve real-world problems involving distributed systems, data synchronization, and real-time inventory management. values engineers who are not only technically proficient but also passionate about the product, collaborative in nature, and eager to elevate the live event experience for fans everywhere. Seatgeek
Recruiter Screen
reportedInitial screening call with a recruiter to assess candidate fit for the role.
What to demonstrate
- Initial screening call with a recruiter to assess candidate fit for the role
- Depth in System Design
How to prepare
- Be able to walk your CV end to end in two minutes, and say why this company specifically.
- Have your salary expectations, notice period and location constraints ready, and ask for the rest of the loop in writing.
Technical Assessment
reportedComplete an online coding challenge or a take-home assignment to evaluate technical skills.
What to demonstrate
- Complete an online coding challenge or a take-home assignment to evaluate technical skills
- Depth in System Design
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Given a list of file access logs, track the frequency of specific function calls (such as a "goto" method) per file.
- Answer aloud and timed: Solve a sliding window problem to identify optimal ticket pricing groups within a continuous range.
Live Technical Screen
reportedConduct a live coding interview via video call focusing on practical coding and system integration.
What to demonstrate
- Conduct a live coding interview via video call focusing on practical coding and system integration
- Depth in System Design
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Implement a variation of a classic algorithmic problem, such as writing a FizzBuzz variation, under strict structural constraints (e.g., avoiding conditional statements).
- Answer aloud and timed: Design an API and backend infrastructure for a high-volume ticket issuing system.
Virtual On-Site Loop
reportedParticipate in multiple rounds of interviews with engineers and managers to discuss system design and past experiences.
What to demonstrate
- Participate in multiple rounds of interviews with engineers and managers to discuss system design and past experiences
- Depth in System Design
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Walk through the architecture of a past project you built, explaining the key technical decisions and trade-offs you made.
- Answer aloud and timed: Explain how you would design a system to handle massive, concurrent traffic spikes during a high-profile stadium event on-sale.
PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.
Know the Product
Take the time to explore the Seatgeek website and mobile app before your interviews. Understand their core business model, key features (such as Deal Score and interactive seat maps), and how they differentiate themselves from competitors. Having a genuine interest in the live events space will make a strong impression.
Prepare to Discuss Failures
Seatgeek values self-awareness and continuous improvement. When asked about past mistakes or technical failures, be honest and objective. Focus on what you learned from the experience, how you resolved the issue, and the concrete steps you took to prevent it from happening again.
Communicate Your Thoughts Clearly
Throughout all technical rounds, treat the interviewer as a collaborator. Talk through your thought process, explain the trade-offs you are considering, and ask clarifying questions before writing code or designing systems. This demonstrates how you would work as a member of the team.
Show genuine excitement for the live entertainment and ticketing industry
Knowing the Seatgeek product and having ideas on how to improve the ticket-buying experience will give you a significant edge.
Choose a category, try a prompt, then open its approach, worked solution or follow-up when you need it.
Write a program to parse, validate, and extract structured data from a raw ticket inventory file.
Write a program to parse, validate, and extract structured data from a raw ticket inventory file.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Given a list of file access logs, track the frequency of specific function calls (such as a "goto" method) per
Given a list of file access logs, track the frequency of specific function calls (such as a "goto" method) per file.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Solve a sliding window problem to identify optimal ticket pricing groups within a continuous range.
Solve a sliding window problem to identify optimal ticket pricing groups within a continuous range.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Implement a variation of a classic algorithmic problem, such as writing a FizzBuzz variation, under strict str
Implement a variation of a classic algorithmic problem, such as writing a FizzBuzz variation, under strict structural constraints (e.g., avoiding conditional statements).
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Explain why the owner filter ignores the listing index
The only index on resource is (tenant_id, status, updated_at DESC, resource_id DESC). A new endpoint returns one user's resources across all statuses, newest created first: WHERE tenant_id = $1 AND owner_user_id = $2 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 20. On a tenant with 2M rows it takes 900 ms and EXPLAIN shows a sort above a large scan. Explain precisely why the existing index cannot serve it, give the index that can, and state which of these the new index still will not help: owner_user_id alone across tenants; the same query ordered by updated_at. PostgreSQL 16.
Approach
- Separate the two jobs an index does. For filtering, a composite btree is seekable only on a left prefix, so with no predicate on status the scan can at best range over tenant_id and test owner_user_id per row; PostgreSQL 16 has no btree skip scan to jump the unconstrained column.
- For ordering, the index is sorted by (status, updated_at) within a tenant and not by created_at, so the LIMIT cannot stop early: every matching row is read and then sorted. That is the 'Sort Method: top-N heapsort' line, and it is why the plan reads 2M rows to answer with 20.
- Derive the replacement from the access path — equality, equality, then the ordering column: CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY ON resource (tenant_id, owner_user_id, created_at DESC). The scan seeks to the (tenant, owner) range and walks 20 entries in order, so the Sort node disappears along with the row-read.
- Treat INCLUDE (title, status) as conditional, not free. An index-only scan still visits the heap for any row whose page is not marked all-visible, so on a table taking 1.2k writes/second the win depends on autovacuum keeping the visibility map current, and the wider index costs more on every insert.
Follow-up
- 90% of rows are status='active'. Would a partial index WHERE status = 'active' change your answer, and for which of the three queries?
- A dashboard runs this for 40 owners in one page load. What changes about the design?
Hold a per-tenant active cap against concurrent creates
A tenant on the standard plan may hold at most 50 resources with status='active'. The create handler runs SELECT count(*) FROM resource WHERE tenant_id = $1 AND status = 'active', compares to 50, then inserts. Two creates arrive 3 ms apart on different instances and the tenant lands at 51. Name the anomaly, say whether PostgreSQL 16 READ COMMITTED or REPEATABLE READ prevents it and why, then give an implementation that holds the cap at READ COMMITTED with the exact statements. Finally, say what changes when the cap is 'at most one running export per tenant' on job_run.
Approach
- Name it: write skew. The two transactions read an overlapping set and write disjoint rows, so there is no row-level conflict for the engine to detect and each commit is individually legal.
- Rule out the levels precisely. READ COMMITTED takes a fresh snapshot per statement and takes no lock on the counted rows, so both see 49. PostgreSQL's REPEATABLE READ is snapshot isolation: it removes non-repeatable reads and phantoms within the snapshot but still admits write skew, because the anomaly is not a re-read of a changed row, it is a read of a set that a concurrent transaction invalidates. Only SERIALIZABLE closes it, by tracking the read dependency and aborting one transaction with SQLSTATE 40001 — a guarantee that exists only if the application re-runs the whole transaction from the read.
- Convert the set predicate into a single-row conflict: keep tenant.active_resource_count and run UPDATE tenant SET active_resource_count = active_resource_count + 1 WHERE tenant_id = $1 AND active_resource_count < 50 in the same transaction as the INSERT. Zero affected rows is the cap, returned as 409. The row lock serialises the decision at any isolation level, and contention is bounded to one tenant's row — which is also the fair-scheduling unit, unlike a global counter that would convoy every tenant behind one row.
- State the cost you just took on: a counter is a second source of truth that can drift, so every path that changes status must adjust it inside the same transaction, and a periodic reconciliation has to exist, with resource_revision as the authority for what the count should have been.
Follow-up
- A resource moves from archived back to active. Which statements change, and what breaks if the counter update and the status change land in different transactions?
- The cap becomes plan-dependent and a plan can change mid-month. Where does the number 50 live, and who reads it?
Implement a robust rate-limiting tool or class to protect an API endpoint from excessive traffic.
Implement a robust rate-limiting tool or class to protect an API endpoint from excessive traffic.
Approach
- Say who the caller is and what they do when the call fails halfway.
- Define the identity of a request so a retry cannot double-apply it.
- Separate accepted, pending, failed and confirmed; they are different facts.
- Design the error taxonomy before the success shape; callers branch on it.
Follow-up
- What happens if the caller retries after a timeout?
- How does a client discover it is on an old version of this contract?
Design an API and backend infrastructure for a high-volume ticket issuing system.
Design an API and backend infrastructure for a high-volume ticket issuing system.
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
Walk through the architecture of a past project you built, explaining the key technical decisions and trade-of
Walk through the architecture of a past project you built, explaining the key technical decisions and trade-offs you made.
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
Explain how you would design a system to handle massive, concurrent traffic spikes during a high-profile stadi
Explain how you would design a system to handle massive, concurrent traffic spikes during a high-profile stadium event on-sale.
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
How would you structure a real-time seat inventory mapping system to prevent double-booking of tickets?
How would you structure a real-time seat inventory mapping system to prevent double-booking of tickets?
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
Review the design of a specific page on the Seatgeek website and discuss how you would improve its performance
Review the design of a specific page on the Seatgeek website and discuss how you would improve its performance and layout.
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Design an API payload for a search results page that displays available tickets, seat rows, and venue maps.
Design an API payload for a search results page that displays available tickets, seat rows, and venue maps.
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
Discuss how you would handle inconsistent data formats when importing ticket listings from third-party APIs.
Discuss how you would handle inconsistent data formats when importing ticket listings from third-party APIs.
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Every query on one table stalls for forty seconds mid-deploy
During a release on PostgreSQL, every query touching resource times out for about 40 seconds and then recovers with no intervention. The release ran one migration, ALTER TABLE resource ADD COLUMN archived_reason TEXT, and the migration log shows it completing in 6 ms. Unrelated tables showed no change in error rate. Explain how a 6 ms statement caused a 40-second stall, give the ordered checks you would run on a live system to confirm it, and give the migration procedure that prevents a repeat.
Approach
- Separate the statement's duration from the lock's duration. ADD COLUMN with no default is a catalogue-only change and genuinely runs in milliseconds, but it requires ACCESS EXCLUSIVE, and it cannot acquire that until every transaction already touching the table has finished.
- Account for the queueing, which is the part that surprises people. A lock request that is waiting blocks later requests for conflicting modes behind it rather than letting them overtake, so one long-open transaction holds the DDL and the DDL holds all the traffic. The stall length is set by the longest open transaction, not by the size of the change.
- Confirm on a live system in this order: pg_stat_activity for that table ordered by xact_start, looking for the oldest transaction and specifically for state = idle in transaction; then pg_locks where granted = false to find the waiter; then join them on pid to name blocker and blocked. pg_blocking_pids() does that join for you and is the fastest single call.
- Prevent rather than merely time it better. Set lock_timeout to a second or two on the migration session so the DDL abandons the queue after a bounded wait and is retried, instead of holding it for as long as the oldest transaction lives. Be exact about what that buys: queries arriving during the wait still queue behind the pending ACCESS EXCLUSIVE request, so each attempt costs them up to one lock_timeout of added latency. The outage goes from 40 seconds to about one second per attempt, not to zero. Also run migrations away from deploy-time peaks, and put a statement timeout and an idle-in-transaction timeout on the analytics role that opens the long transactions.
Follow-up
- The same release also wants NOT NULL on that column. What is the sequence that gets there without a long lock?
- Your lock_timeout retry fails ten times in a row because the analytics transaction is always open. What do you change?
Built from the rounds and topics Seatgeek candidates report.
Prepare, practise & reflect
One practical outcome each day. Spend longer where you need it.
0 / 7 done01Map the Seatgeek loop
- Write out the reported sequence: Recruiter Screen, Technical Assessment, Live Technical Screen, Virtual On-Site Loop.
- For each round, write one sentence on what it is judging, from the description above, and mark the one you are least ready for.
Deliverable: A one-page map of the 4 reported rounds, with the weakest marked.
02Work System Design
- Spend the session on System Design, which Seatgeek candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in System Design and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in System Design.
03Work Coding Interviews
- Spend the session on Coding Interviews, which Seatgeek candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Coding Interviews and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Coding Interviews.
04Work API Design
- Spend the session on API Design, which Seatgeek candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in API Design and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in API Design.
05Answer out loud: Coding & Problem Solving
- Answer aloud, timed: Implement a robust rate-limiting tool or class to protect an API endpoint from excessive traffic.
- Answer aloud, timed: Write a program to parse, validate, and extract structured data from a raw ticket inventory file.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Coding & Problem Solving question(s), under time.
06Answer out loud: System Design & Architecture
- Answer aloud, timed: Design an API and backend infrastructure for a high-volume ticket issuing system.
- Answer aloud, timed: Walk through the architecture of a past project you built, explaining the key technical decisions and trade-offs you made.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported System Design & Architecture question(s), under time.
07Answer out loud: Product & Practical Engineering
- Answer aloud, timed: Review the design of a specific page on the Seatgeek website and discuss how you would improve its performance and layout.
- Answer aloud, timed: Design an API payload for a search results page that displays available tickets, seat rows, and venue maps.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Product & Practical Engineering question(s), under time.
Expand any day for tasks and deliverables. Your progress is saved on this device.
Behavioural rounds judge the decision you made and what it cost.
Why did you choose to pursue a career in software engineering, and what excites you about the ticketing indust
Why did you choose to pursue a career in software engineering, and what excites you about the ticketing industry?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Describe a significant technical failure or mistake you made in a past role. What did you learn, and how did y
Describe a significant technical failure or mistake you made in a past role. What did you learn, and how did you address it?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a team member. How did you resolve it to move the project for
Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a team member. How did you resolve it to move the project forward?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you approach mentoring junior engineers and fostering a collaborative team environment?
How do you approach mentoring junior engineers and fostering a collaborative team environment?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
- 01
Why did you choose to pursue a career in software engineering, and what excites you about the ticketing industry?
- 02
Describe a significant technical failure or mistake you made in a past role. What did you learn, and how did you address it?
- 03
Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a team member. How did you resolve it to move the project forward?
- 04
How do you approach mentoring junior engineers and fostering a collaborative team environment?
How technical are the coding interviews at Seatgeek?
The coding interviews are highly practical. While you should be comfortable with fundamental data structures and algorithms (such as arrays, hash maps, and sliding windows), you will not be asked to solve obscure, highly theoretical brainteasers. The focus is on writing clean, readable, and well-structured code that solves real-world engineering problems.
Seatgeek Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the company culture like for engineers?
Seatgeek has a highly collaborative, social, and supportive engineering culture. Teams emphasize open communication, continuous learning, and mutual support. The interview process itself is designed to be conversational, reflecting the day-to-day working environment where pairing and collaborative problem-solving are common.
Seatgeek Software Engineer candidate reports ↗How should I prepare for the System Design interview?
Focus on understanding high-concurrency architectures, API design, and data consistency models. Be prepared to talk in detail about a past project you built, explaining the architectural decisions, trade-offs, and scaling challenges you faced. Practice explaining your reasoning clearly, as some interviewers may dive deep into your design choices.
Seatgeek Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Does Seatgeek offer remote or hybrid work options?
Seatgeek supports a hybrid work environment with offices in major hubs like New York, NY. Depending on the team and role, remote opportunities may be available within specific regions. Be sure to discuss your location preferences and expectations with your recruiter during the initial call. Seatgeek has a highly selective hiring bar and receives a high volume of applications. It is not uncommon for candidates to experience delays in post-interview feedback, so proactive follow-up with your recruiter is recommended.
Seatgeek Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What topics does Seatgeek test in interviews?
Seatgeek interviews most often cover Stakeholder Communication, Behavioral Interviewing, SQL, Python, and Pandas. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.
Seatgeek Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Sources & methodology 3 sources ↗
No official company page is cited. Rounds and questions come from candidate reports and PracHub editorial material; each source shows the date it was read.
- 01Seatgeek Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
Company-reported rounds, questions and FAQ.
Candidate reports · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 02PracHub Software Engineer practice ↗
PracHub practice material, not company-reported.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 03PracHub preparation framework ↗
PracHub preparation guidance.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22
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