OpenAI Front End Interview Questions
Explore round details, preparation advice, and related practice in GreatFrontEnd's OpenAI Front End Interview Guide.
OpenAI has interviewed candidates on both frontend and full-stack tracks. Experiences include streaming React interfaces, API-backed UI, algorithms, and ChatGPT-style design. Establish which track you are interviewing for before assuming the technical screen follows one fixed format.
Interview process
OpenAI's interview guide describes introductory calls, skills-based assessments, and final interviews. Assessment formats and AI-tool permissions depend on the interview; the preparation materials should specify what is allowed.
An October 2025 experience included an hour of DSA and an hour of full-stack design before a more specialized onsite. In 2026, applicants also described choosing between frontend and full-stack tracks and taking frontend screens that combined UI coding with design. These accounts should remain separate when planning your preparation.
JavaScript and user interface coding questions
- Build a UI that fetches data from a supplied API and displays it with some interaction. One earlier version used an API returning poetry.
- Implement a ChatGPT-style interface using a supplied function that streams response chunks.
- Extend the interface to accept additional requests while a response is in progress, display text one character at a time, and match a reference layout.
- Explain why the React implementation works, including state updates, DOM behavior, and CSS text rendering.
Keep received response data separate from the text currently displayed. That separation makes a streaming response and a typewriter effect easier to reason about independently. Algorithm coding also appeared in the earlier full-stack screen, so confirm that part of your schedule rather than preparing only components.
System design questions
- Design an older ChatGPT-style application.
- Design an internal ChatGPT Playground with model selection, editable parameters, and presets that can be saved, shared, and loaded.
- Discuss the component tree, schemas, APIs, real-time updates, and concurrent edits.
A useful comparison is the Chat App design, which covers one-to-one text messaging, delivery states, and reconnect behavior. Add model responses, streaming, and shared presets to adapt that base exercise to the Playground scenario.
Insider tips from the GreatFrontEnd community
These tips were shared by GreatFrontEnd users who have completed interviews with OpenAI.
October 2025:
The OpenAI tech screen is full-stack — 1 hour DSA coding + 1 hour full-stack system design. The onsite is then more domain-focused, so frontend if you're going for a FE role. Don't skip DSA prep even for a frontend interview here.
July 2025:
Cleared my OpenAI first pair of rounds a couple months back. The React question was pulling from one of their APIs that returned poetry or something — straightforward fetch + render with some interaction. The system design round was basically designing an older variant of ChatGPT.
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