Company guides
🟥 Netflix — Frontend Interview Guide
Emphasis: Senior-only bar. Deep frontend system design, performance at scale, and streaming/media expertise. Culture-fit ("keeper test") is real.
Related: Company index · ROADMAP
The loop (typical)
| Round | Focus | Prep section |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiter + hiring manager | Experience, culture | — |
| Coding | JS/React, practical | 03-javascript · 06-react |
| Frontend system design | Media/streaming "Design X" | 15-system-design |
| Deep dive | Past projects, trade-offs | 08-architecture |
| Culture | Values, collaboration | — |
What they emphasize
- Performance — Core Web Vitals, TTFB, lazy loading, memory; Netflix obsesses over startup time and smoothness.
- Streaming/media — adaptive bitrate, buffering,
<video>/MSE. - Senior autonomy — you own ambiguity end-to-end and justify trade-offs crisply.
- A/B experimentation mindset.
Frequently asked (community-sourced)
System design
- Design a Video Player (ABR, captions) → flagship
- Design Netflix / a streaming home page → 15-system-design
- Design an Image Carousel / billboard row → flagship
- Design a News Feed / infinite rows → flagship
Performance
- Optimizing LCP/INP, virtualization → 09-performance
- Virtualized List → flagship
React / JS
Prep plan (2 weeks)
- Master performance end-to-end (metrics + fixes).
- Study the video player + media streaming cold.
- Practice senior-level system design with explicit trade-offs.
- Prepare deep-dive stories on past high-impact work.
🟢 Green flags · 🔴 Red flags
🟢 Do: show senior autonomy in ambiguity · obsess over performance and startup time · know media/streaming (ABR, buffering) · justify every trade-off crisply. 🔴 Avoid: needing hand-holding · hand-waving on performance · shallow system design · not owning the decision.
📝 Sample interviewer prompts
- "Design a video player with adaptive bitrate and captions."
- "How would you cut startup time on a media-heavy page?"
- "Walk me through a hard trade-off you owned end-to-end."
Interviewed at Netflix? Add the questions you got (role + year) via a PR.