Verkada · Software Engineer
Updated · 2026-09-22

Verkada Software Engineer
Interview Guide

THE 60-SECOND BRIEF

A Software Engineer at Verkada plays a pivotal role in redefining physical security for the modern enterprise. Unlike traditional software companies, Verkada operates at the unique intersection of hardware and enterprise cloud software. Engineers here do not just write code for isolated web applications; they build the highly scalable, low-latency cloud platform, known as Command, which connects, manages, and secures millions of physical IoT devices—including video security cameras, access control systems, environmental sensors, alarms, and workplace management tools. The impact of a Software Engineer is felt across both the digital and physical worlds.

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

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

Networking fundamentalsPresentation skills (technical topic)DNS (Domain Name System)

22 min read

Practice 23 Software Engineer prompts
19Company bank questionsSnapshot · Sep 23, 2026 PT
9Candidate experiences ↗Read their reports
23Practice promptsAcross five skill areas

A Software Engineer at Verkada plays a pivotal role in redefining physical security for the modern enterprise. Unlike traditional software companies, Verkada operates at the unique intersection of hardware and enterprise cloud software. Engineers here do not just write code for isolated web applications; they build the highly scalable, low-latency cloud platform, known as Command, which connects, manages, and secures millions of physical IoT devices—including video security cameras, access control systems, environmental sensors, alarms, and workplace management tools. The impact of a Software Engineer is felt across both the digital and physical worlds. You will be responsible for designing and implementing distributed systems that ingest petabytes of real-time video and sensor data, optimizing edge-to-cloud communication protocols, and crafting intuitive frontend interfaces that make complex security data actionable in a split second. Because Verkada prioritizes rapid deployment, high availability, and robust security, your work directly ensures the physical safety and operational efficiency of over 30,000 organizations globally. Whether you join the Device Platform, Alarms, Access Control, or Platform Infrastructure team, you will face complex challenges involving deep networking, concurrency, real-time video streaming, and massive cloud infrastructure.

01

Recruiter Phone Screen

reported

Initial call to assess your background, interest in the company, and alignment with the role.

What to demonstrate

  • Initial call to assess your background, interest in the company, and alignment with the role
  • Depth in Networking fundamentals

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.
Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
02

Initial Technical Screen

reported

May consist of an online coding assessment or a live video call focusing on algorithm design, frontend development, or systems networking.

What to demonstrate

  • May consist of an online coding assessment or a live video call focusing on algorithm design, frontend development, or systems networking
  • Depth in Networking fundamentals

How to prepare

  • Answer aloud and timed: Implement a graph traversal algorithm to find the shortest path or detect cycles within a simulated network of IoT devices.
  • Answer aloud and timed: Write a recursive function to solve a multi-dimensional matrix pathfinding problem with uniform distribution constraints.
Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
03

Final Round Interview Loop

reported

A half-day loop with multiple one-on-one technical interviews, a system design session, a behavioral round, and a technical panel presentation.

What to demonstrate

  • A half-day loop with multiple one-on-one technical interviews, a system design session, a behavioral round, and a technical panel presentation
  • Depth in Networking fundamentals

How to prepare

  • Answer aloud and timed: Implement a custom sorting mechanism for a stream of incoming real-time alerts based on priority and timestamp.
  • Answer aloud and timed: Design a real-time video streaming backend that can support low-latency playback for thousands of concurrent security cameras.
Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports

9 candidate reports. Individual accounts describe a particular role and hiring cycle.

Software Engineer

Verkada Software Engineer Interview Experience — Real-Time Voting Results for a Halftime Survey

Technical ScreenOutcome: rejected

The coding question was LeetCode 36. The system design question felt new to me. I was asked to design a survey system for a Super Bowl halftime show. Each user could vote for one question, with either A or B as the result. There were two requirements: A user should be able to see the real-time result immediately after voting. The host should be able to see the accurate voting result after the eve…

Read full experience
Software Engineer

Verkada Software Engineer Interview Experience — Motion Thresholds Across Multiple Cameras

Technical ScreenOutcome: rejected

I could not answer Part 2 and was rejected. Part 1 — Single Camera Imagine that a camera installed in your building can detect motion. The camera outputs a stream of timestamps and a value indicating the motion intensity at each time. You collect this data and want to determine the periods when the motion was at or above a given threshold. Write a function that takes an array of sorted (timestamp…

Read full experience
Account Executive

Account Executive interview at Verkada

Outcome: rejected

The recruiter was responsive and the interviews were polite and enjoyable. After LinkedIn outreach, I went through what seemed like a typical four-stage process. They contacted my professional references and told me there was an intent for a verbal offer, which surprised me. Then they asked for another interview round. After I completed it, I was rejected with a generic explanation of insufficien…

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Account Executive

Verkada Account Executive interview: sales sequence with recruiter ghosting

Outcome: ghosted

I went through what looked like a standard sales-track process: an internal recruiter round, a sales-manager round, a data-and-sales-figures review, and then a peer from the sales team I would have joined. On paper it sounded straightforward, but the coordination was a mess. I received requests for times I had already said I was unavailable. The recruiter asked again for availability for the foll…

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Software Engineer

Verkada Software Engineer interview: product troubleshooting and networking

Technical ScreenOutcome: offer

The interviews moved quickly after my recruiter conversation. I had three rounds, starting with a behavioral discussion about my background, who I was and what interested me in the company. The second round was the most technical. I worked through two coding-style questions involving connecting someone to the internet and troubleshooting a Verkada product. The questions felt practical: I had to t…

Read full experience

PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.

01

Going into the loop without having done this.

To maximize your chances of success during the Verkada interview process, keep these practical tips in mind:

02

Going into the loop without having done this.

Rehearse Your Presentation Thoroughly – Treat the technical presentation as a core engineering deliverable. Rehearse it multiple times to ensure you stay within the 20-minute limit, explain the technical challenges clearly, and can confidently defend your design choices.

03

Going into the loop without having done this.

Set Up Your Local Development Environment – For coding rounds, make sure your preferred IDE, compilers, and debugging tools are fully configured and ready to go. You may be asked to write, run, and debug code locally rather than in a restricted online sandbox.

04

Going into the loop without having done this.

Do not rely solely on online coding platforms during your prep. Practice writing code in your local IDE, running test cases, and debugging errors quickly, as Verkada interviewers highly value practical execution speed.

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

19 technical prompts0 include a worked solution

Implement a class that supports insertion, deletion, and retrieving a random element in constant time.

medium
Coding & Algorithmic Problem Solving

Implement a class that supports insertion, deletion, and retrieving a random element in constant time.

Approach
  1. Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
  2. Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
  3. Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
  4. 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 intervals, merge all overlapping intervals and return the minimized list.

medium
Coding & Algorithmic Problem Solving

Given a list of intervals, merge all overlapping intervals and return the minimized list.

Approach
  1. Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
  2. Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
  3. Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
  4. 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 graph traversal algorithm to find the shortest path or detect cycles within a simulated network of

medium
Coding & Algorithmic Problem Solving

Implement a graph traversal algorithm to find the shortest path or detect cycles within a simulated network of IoT devices.

Approach
  1. Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
  2. Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
  3. Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
  4. 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?

Write a recursive function to solve a multi-dimensional matrix pathfinding problem with uniform distribution c

medium
Coding & Algorithmic Problem Solving

Write a recursive function to solve a multi-dimensional matrix pathfinding problem with uniform distribution constraints.

Approach
  1. Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
  2. Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
  3. Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
  4. 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 custom sorting mechanism for a stream of incoming real-time alerts based on priority and timestamp

medium
Coding & Algorithmic Problem Solving

Implement a custom sorting mechanism for a stream of incoming real-time alerts based on priority and timestamp.

Approach
  1. Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
  2. Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
  3. Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
  4. 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?

Built from the rounds and topics Verkada 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 Verkada loop
  • Write out the reported sequence: Recruiter Phone Screen, Initial Technical Screen, Final Round Interview 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 3 reported rounds, with the weakest marked.

02Work Networking fundamentals
  • Spend the session on Networking fundamentals, which Verkada candidates report being tested on.
  • Write one worked example in Networking fundamentals and time yourself on it.

Deliverable: One timed worked example in Networking fundamentals.

03Work Presentation skills (technical topic)
  • Spend the session on Presentation skills (technical topic), which Verkada candidates report being tested on.
  • Write one worked example in Presentation skills (technical topic) and time yourself on it.

Deliverable: One timed worked example in Presentation skills (technical topic).

04Work DNS (Domain Name System)
  • Spend the session on DNS (Domain Name System), which Verkada candidates report being tested on.
  • Write one worked example in DNS (Domain Name System) and time yourself on it.

Deliverable: One timed worked example in DNS (Domain Name System).

05Answer out loud: Coding & Algorithmic Problem Solving
  • Answer aloud, timed: Implement a class that supports insertion, deletion, and retrieving a random element in constant time.
  • Answer aloud, timed: Given a list of intervals, merge all overlapping intervals and return the minimized list.

Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Coding & Algorithmic Problem Solving question(s), under time.

06Answer out loud: System Design & Architecture
  • Answer aloud, timed: Design a real-time video streaming backend that can support low-latency playback for thousands of concurrent security cameras.
  • Answer aloud, timed: How would you design a distributed, fault-tolerant alerting system that processes millions of sensor events per second and guarantees delivery of critical alarms?

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

07Answer out loud: Frontend & Web Development
  • Answer aloud, timed: Build a custom React component in a timed session that renders a grid layout of video player cards with responsive controls.
  • Answer aloud, timed: Explain the core mechanics of JavaScript, specifically how `call`, `apply`, and Promises work under the hood.

Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Frontend & Web Development 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 deliver a highly technical project on a tight deadline. How did you manage tra

medium
Behavioral & Culture Fit

Tell me about a time you had to deliver a highly technical project on a tight deadline. How did you manage trade-offs between speed and code quality?

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 complex technical bug you encountered in a past project. How did you diagnose it, and what did you

medium
Behavioral & Culture Fit

Describe a complex technical bug you encountered in a past project. How did you diagnose it, and what did you learn from the resolution?

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 Verkada, and which of our physical security product lines excites you the most?

medium
Behavioral & Culture Fit

Why do you want to work at Verkada, and which of our physical security product lines excites you the most?

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 time you disagreed with a technical lead or manager on a system design choice. How did you res

medium
Behavioral & Culture Fit

Tell me about a time you disagreed with a technical lead or manager on a system design choice. How did you resolve the conflict?

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 deliver a highly technical project on a tight deadline. How did you manage trade-offs between speed and code quality?

  • 02

    Describe a complex technical bug you encountered in a past project. How did you diagnose it, and what did you learn from the resolution?

  • 03

    Why do you want to work at Verkada, and which of our physical security product lines excites you the most?

  • 04

    Tell me about a time you disagreed with a technical lead or manager on a system design choice. How did you resolve the conflict?

PracHub preparation framework
How difficult are the technical interviews at Verkada?

Candidates generally describe the interviews as average to difficult. The coding rounds are standard algorithmic challenges, but the system design and networking questions are highly practical and specific to IoT and cloud scale, requiring a deep understanding of real-world constraints rather than just theoretical knowledge.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
What is the format of the technical presentation round?

You will deliver a 20-minute presentation on a complex technical project you have worked on in the past. This is followed by a 10-to-15-minute Q&A session where a panel of Verkada engineers will ask deep questions about your architectural choices, trade-offs, and individual contributions.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
Is there an on-site interview requirement?

Yes. Verkada strongly prefers conducting the final round of interviews in person at their headquarters in San Mateo, CA (or other regional offices). They cover all travel, accommodation, and meal expenses for candidates traveling for on-site interviews. ##### Tip The on-site experience is a great opportunity to explore the Verkada office, interact with potential teammates, and get a feel for the company's high-energy, collaborative office culture.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
How fast does Verkada make hiring decisions?

The recruiting team is known for being highly responsive and fast-moving. Many candidates report receiving updates or formal offers within a few days—sometimes even the next morning—following their final round interviews.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
Does Verkada offer hybrid or remote work options for Software Engineers?

Verkada has a strong in-office culture, prioritizing in-person collaboration, mentorship, and rapid iteration. Most engineering roles are based out of their physical offices (such as the San Mateo, CA HQ) with standard in-office expectations.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
How hard is the Verkada interview?

Candidates most commonly rate Verkada interviews as medium, based on 547 reported interviews. About 37% of candidates who interview go on to receive an offer.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
What topics does Verkada test in interviews?

Verkada interviews most often cover Stakeholder Communication, Python, DNS (Domain Name System), Stakeholder communication, and Behavioral Interviewing. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
Is Verkada a good place to work?

Employees rate Verkada 3.6 out of 5 overall, based on aggregated workplace reviews spanning career growth, work-life balance, compensation, culture, and management.

Verkada Software Engineer candidate reports
Sources & methodology 3 sources ↗

Official role evidence, timestamped platform data and clearly labeled preparation advice.