Topgolf · Software Engineer
Updated · 2026-10-02

Topgolf Software Engineer
Interview Guide

THE 60-SECOND BRIEF

At Topgolf, technology is not just a supporting function; it is the core engine that drives the entire guest experience. As a Software Engineer, you will work at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and cutting-edge technology. You will help build and scale the digital platforms that power millions of guest visits annually, ranging from real-time gaming systems in the hitting bays to high-throughput reservation engines, mobile applications, and venue management software. Your work will directly influence how guests interact with the physical and digital elements of Topgolf. This means solving complex engineering challenges involving low-latency data transmission, IoT integration with ball-tracking systems, and highly scalable cloud architectures.

This guide is scoped to a Software Engineer candidate at Topgolf.

Topgolf candidates report 4 rounds over 3-5 weeks. The stages below are what candidates describe, not a published process.

Take-home assignment executionInterview communicationProduct questions

25 min read

Browse Software Engineer questions

See the practice prompts

21Practice promptsAcross five skill areas

At Topgolf, technology is not just a supporting function; it is the core engine that drives the entire guest experience. As a Software Engineer, you will work at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and cutting-edge technology. You will help build and scale the digital platforms that power millions of guest visits annually, ranging from real-time gaming systems in the hitting bays to high-throughput reservation engines, mobile applications, and venue management software. Your work will directly influence how guests interact with the physical and digital elements of Topgolf. This means solving complex engineering challenges involving low-latency data transmission, IoT integration with ball-tracking systems, and highly scalable cloud architectures. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver seamless, reliable, and engaging software that keeps the energy high and the games running smoothly. This role requires a unique blend of technical execution, product-minded thinking, and a passion for creating memorable real-world experiences. Whether you are optimizing backend APIs or refining the user interface of the bay screens, your contributions will have a visible and immediate impact on the global brand's success.

01

Phone Screen

reported

Initial phone screen with a recruiter to discuss your background, career goals, and logistics.

What to demonstrate

  • Initial phone screen with a recruiter to discuss your background, career goals, and logistics
  • Depth in Take-home assignment execution

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.
Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
02

Technical Evaluation

reported

Involves a take-home assessment to showcase coding standards, architecture choices, and testing strategies.

What to demonstrate

  • Involves a take-home assessment to showcase coding standards, architecture choices, and testing strategies
  • Depth in Take-home assignment execution

How to prepare

  • Answer aloud and timed: Describe a scenario where you had to optimize a slow-performing database query or API endpoint.
  • Answer aloud and timed: How do you ensure code quality and consistency across a collaborative engineering team?
Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
03

Technical Review

reported

Participate in a session with an engineer to walk through your solution and discuss optimizations.

What to demonstrate

  • Participate in a session with an engineer to walk through your solution and discuss optimizations
  • Depth in Take-home assignment execution

How to prepare

  • Answer aloud and timed: Walk me through how you would handle error state management in a distributed system.
  • Answer aloud and timed: How would you design a real-time leaderboard system for a multiplayer gaming environment?
Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
04

Virtual Panel Interviews

reported

Conducted over Zoom or Microsoft Teams, focusing on system design, product alignment, and behavioral questions.

What to demonstrate

  • Conducted over Zoom or Microsoft Teams
  • Focusing on system design, product alignment, and behavioral questions

How to prepare

  • Answer aloud and timed: Describe how you would architect a reservation system that prevents double-booking during peak hours.
  • Answer aloud and timed: How do you approach database selection (SQL vs. NoSQL) when designing a new microservice?
Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗

PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.

01

Clarify work authorization early

Ensure that any visa or work permit requirements are clearly communicated and resolved during your very first conversation with the recruiter to avoid any alignment issues later in the process.

02

Some candidates have reported sudden communication gaps or roles being closed mid-process

Keep your momentum going by following up politely with your recruiter if you do not hear back within the agreed-upon timeframe.

03

Focus on the guest experience

Throughout your interviews, demonstrate that you care about the end user. Frame your technical decisions around how they ultimately improve the experience for Topgolf guests and venue associates.

04

Showcase your collaborative nature

Since Topgolf values its social culture, emphasize your soft skills. Be warm, communicative, and show that you enjoy working closely with others to solve complex problems.

Choose a category, try a prompt, then open its approach, worked solution or follow-up when you need it.

16 technical prompts0 include a worked solution

Archive a resource graph without breaking live references or recursing

medium
graph traversaltopological ordertenant isolation

Resources reference other resources within a tenant; for the largest tenant the reference table holds up to 2,000,000 nodes and 8,000,000 edges. Archiving a resource must archive everything reachable from it that nothing outside the set still references, refuse when a live external referrer exists, and terminate when references form cycles, which they legitimately do. Produce the archive order and the refusal list, targeting O(V+E). Say what stops the traversal crossing a tenant boundary, and why recursion is the wrong control structure at this size.

Approach
  1. Load the subgraph with the tenant predicate on both endpoints of the edge, not only on the side you started from. Scoping the left table alone is the classic cross-tenant leak: one mis-entered edge then pulls another tenant's resources into the traversal and, worse, into the archive.
  2. Traverse iteratively with an explicit stack. A 2,000,000-node graph can hold a chain deep enough to exhaust a native stack in the low tens of thousands of frames, and that failure is a process crash rather than an error you can return.
  3. Treat cycles as data rather than corruption: compute strongly connected components with Tarjan in O(V+E) using its own explicit stack, then condense. The condensation is a DAG, so a topological order over it gives the archive order, and every member of a component archives in one transaction because no order within a cycle is valid.
  4. Decide refusals with reverse edges. A candidate is archivable only if every in-edge originates inside the candidate set, so build the transpose or count in-degrees restricted to the visited set, and emit each blocked resource with the id of the external referrer, which is the only part of the answer an operator can act on.
Follow-up
  • The graph is read in one query and the archive writes a minute later. What can change in between, and how do you make the write safe?
  • The candidate set is 400,000 resources. Is that one transaction, and if not, what does a half-finished archive look like to a reader?

Canonicalise a request body into a stable idempotency fingerprint

medium
parsingcanonicalisationhashing

idempotency_key.request_fingerprint is a SHA-256 over the method, path and canonicalised body, and a retry whose fingerprint differs must be rejected with 422 rather than served the stored response. Write the canonicaliser. Bodies are JSON up to 256 KB nested at most 32 levels; clients vary key order, whitespace and unicode escaping, and some send 64-bit ids as JSON numbers. Produce a deterministic byte string such that semantically identical bodies match and any semantic difference does not. State your complexity and name two normalisations you refuse to perform.

Approach
  1. Parse once into a tree, then re-serialise under fixed rules: object keys sorted, array order preserved, one escaping convention, no insignificant whitespace. Parsing is O(n) and sorting keys is O(k log k) per object, so O(n log n) overall with O(depth) stack, and the 32-level cap is enforced during parsing because hostile nesting is how a canonicaliser becomes a stack overflow.
  2. Sort keys by their UTF-8 bytes and say why the obvious implementation is wrong in some runtimes: a default string comparison that orders by UTF-16 code units places surrogate pairs, meaning code points from U+10000 up, below U+E000 to U+FFFF, which is not UTF-8 byte order, so two services written in different languages disagree on the same document.
  3. Do not re-encode numbers through a double. IEEE-754 binary64 represents integers exactly only up to 2^53, so normalising a 19-digit id through a float changes it, and 1 against 1.0 cannot be reconciled without deciding whether they are the same value. Preserve the literal token, and require ids as strings at the API boundary if you want them comparable.
  4. Reject duplicate keys rather than picking one. JSON permits them and parsers disagree, most keeping the last, so any choice you make ties the fingerprint to a parser detail that the code handling the request does not necessarily share.
Follow-up
  • A client sends the same logical request with an extra field your API ignores. Same key, different fingerprint, so you return 422. Is that the right answer?
  • Where does the fingerprint get computed relative to request decompression and the body-size limit?

Track a rolling failure rate per destination for circuit decisions

easy
sliding windowring buffercircuit breaker

The egress service delivers about 1,500 webhooks per second across roughly 40,000 destinations, each call bounded by a 10 second timeout. Maintain, per destination, the failure rate over the trailing 60 seconds so a caller can ask before dispatch whether the circuit should open. Attempts arrive as (destination_id, finished_at_ms, outcome). Requirement: amortised O(1) per attempt, with total memory bounded by the destination count rather than by traffic. Give the structure, its exact memory, and the rule that stops a destination with three attempts from opening a circuit.

Approach
  1. Name the exact-deque version and then reject it as the default. Holding timestamps and advancing a tail pointer past anything older than now minus 60 seconds is a correct two-pointer window at amortised O(1) per attempt, but its memory tracks in-window traffic, so one destination in a retry storm holds hundreds of thousands of entries while thousands of quiet destinations hold none.
  2. Use a ring of 60 one-second buckets per destination, each bucket a pair of counters for attempts and failures. On an attempt, advance the ring by the elapsed whole seconds, zeroing at most min(elapsed, 60) buckets, then increment the head. That is amortised O(1) with a fixed footprint per destination.
  3. State the footprint: 60 buckets times two 4-byte counters is 480 bytes of payload per destination, so 40,000 destinations is roughly 20 to 25 MB with per-entry overhead, bounded by the catalogue rather than by the rate. The cost is granularity, since the oldest bucket ages out in whole seconds, which is far tighter than the decision needs.
  4. Require a minimum sample before the circuit may open. A destination with three attempts and three failures reads as 100 percent and is not evidence; a floor of roughly 20 attempts in the window makes the ratio meaningful, and below that floor use a run of consecutive failures as the trigger instead.
Follow-up
  • The fleet is 30 instances and each sees roughly a thirtieth of a destination's traffic. Where does the rate actually live, and what does a per-instance answer get wrong?
  • A destination answers in 9.5 seconds and succeeds. It is not failing but it is consuming your per-destination concurrency. What signal should open the circuit here?

Built from the rounds and topics Topgolf candidates report.

Small steps. Visible outcomes.0 / 7 completed
ONE WEEK · YOUR PACE

Prepare, practise & reflect

One practical outcome each day. Spend longer where you need it.

0 / 7 done
01Map the Topgolf loop
  • Write out the reported sequence: Phone Screen, Technical Evaluation, Technical Review, Virtual Panel Interviews.
  • 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 Take-home assignment execution
  • Spend the session on Take-home assignment execution, which Topgolf candidates report being tested on.
  • Write one worked example in Take-home assignment execution and time yourself on it.

Deliverable: One timed worked example in Take-home assignment execution.

03Work Interview communication
  • Spend the session on Interview communication, which Topgolf candidates report being tested on.
  • Write one worked example in Interview communication and time yourself on it.

Deliverable: One timed worked example in Interview communication.

04Work Product questions
  • Spend the session on Product questions, which Topgolf candidates report being tested on.
  • Write one worked example in Product questions and time yourself on it.

Deliverable: One timed worked example in Product questions.

05Answer out loud: Technical & Take-Home Execution
  • Answer aloud, timed: Explain the architectural patterns you chose for your take-home assignment and why you selected them.
  • Answer aloud, timed: How do you approach writing unit tests for asynchronous operations or external API integrations?

Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Technical & Take-Home Execution question(s), under time.

06Answer out loud: System Design & Architecture
  • Answer aloud, timed: How would you design a real-time leaderboard system for a multiplayer gaming environment?
  • Answer aloud, timed: Describe how you would architect a reservation system that prevents double-booking during peak hours.

Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported System Design & Architecture question(s), under time.

07Answer out loud: Behavioral & Cultural Alignment
  • Answer aloud, timed: Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with product managers or non-technical stakeholders to deliver a feature.
  • Answer aloud, timed: How do you handle constructive feedback on your code during peer reviews?

Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Behavioral & Cultural Alignment 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.

Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with product managers or non-technical stakeholders to deliver a f

medium
Behavioral & Cultural Alignment

Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with product managers or non-technical stakeholders to deliver a feature.

Approach
  1. Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
  2. State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
  3. Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
  4. 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 handle constructive feedback on your code during peer reviews?

medium
Behavioral & Cultural Alignment

How do you handle constructive feedback on your code during peer reviews?

Approach
  1. Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
  2. State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
  3. Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
  4. 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 situation where you had to quickly adapt to a sudden change in project requirements.

medium
Behavioral & Cultural Alignment

Describe a situation where you had to quickly adapt to a sudden change in project requirements.

Approach
  1. Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
  2. State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
  3. Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
  4. 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?

Why do you want to work at Topgolf, and how do you contribute to a positive, social team dynamic?

medium
Behavioral & Cultural Alignment

Why do you want to work at Topgolf, and how do you contribute to a positive, social team dynamic?

Approach
  1. Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
  2. State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
  3. Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
  4. 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 challenging technical conflict you had with a teammate and how you resolved it.

medium
Behavioral & Cultural Alignment

Tell me about a challenging technical conflict you had with a teammate and how you resolved it.

Approach
  1. Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
  2. State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
  3. Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
  4. 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

    Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with product managers or non-technical stakeholders to deliver a feature.

  • 02

    How do you handle constructive feedback on your code during peer reviews?

  • 03

    Describe a situation where you had to quickly adapt to a sudden change in project requirements.

  • 04

    Why do you want to work at Topgolf, and how do you contribute to a positive, social team dynamic?

PracHub preparation framework ↗
How difficult is the Software Engineer interview process at Topgolf?

Candidates generally report the difficulty as average. The technical questions are highly practical and relevant to the day-to-day work, focusing on clean code, system architecture, and collaborative problem-solving rather than highly theoretical algorithmic puzzles.

Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
What is the typical timeline for the interview process?

The timeline can vary. While some candidates experience a rapid process spanning just a couple of weeks from the initial screen to the final decision, others have reported delays. It is highly recommended to stay in proactive contact with your recruiter throughout the process.

Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
Does Topgolf support remote work for engineering roles?

Many engineering positions at Topgolf offer remote or hybrid flexibility, depending on the specific team and location. Be sure to clarify the exact work arrangements and expectations with your recruiter during your initial phone screen.

Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
What are they looking for in the take-home assignment?

They are looking for production-ready code. This means your solution should be clean, modular, well-documented, and accompanied by robust unit tests. They want to see how you structure an application and make architectural trade-offs.

Topgolf Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
What topics does Topgolf test in interviews?

Topgolf interviews most often cover Process Improvement, Operations Management, GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), SQL (querying/accounting software), and Marketing analytics. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.

Topgolf 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.