Independent and unofficial. Synthesized from publicly-reported, first-hand candidate accounts (2024–2026). Not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Anthropic, OpenAI, or any company named. Treat stage structure as well-corroborated and all numbers as directional self-report.
I've been collecting publicly-reported, first-hand accounts of the software-engineering interview loops at Anthropic and OpenAI. The patterns are consistent enough to be worth writing down.
The loop, stage by stage
The two loops rhyme but emphasize different things — Anthropic is values-aware from the recruiter screen; OpenAI front-loads team fit. The single most consistent finding: a values / culture round appears in essentially every Anthropic onsite, and it fails more technically-strong candidates than any coding round.
Stage
