Samsara, based in San Francisco, sells its Connected Operations Cloud: vehicle gateways, AI dash cams and sensors that send data from fleets and equipment to a web platform. Candidates describe practical coding and design rounds, and its teams mix firmware, back-end and front-end work. This page covers what Samsara builds and who it hires, the process candidates commonly report, the technical depth the teams care about, representative problem types, what interviewers score, and a three-week prep plan.
What Samsara builds and who it hires
Samsara has written that its vehicle gateways and AI dash cams run a custom Linux build, that firmware engineers write C and Go for those devices, and that the web side uses Go, React, TypeScript and GraphQL, with React Native for mobile. A Samsara engineering post describes tuning Go's garbage collector to cut a camera service's memory use on the vehicle gateway by about five times.
- Back-end engineers: Go services for ingestion, alerts and APIs.
- Firmware engineers: C and Go on Linux-based devices.
- Full-stack and front-end engineers: React, TypeScript and GraphQL.
- Machine learning engineers: computer vision on dash cams.
What the process tends to look like
| Stage | What happens | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiter call | Role, team, level and timeline | Know the product and the team's area |
| Technical screen | A coding round on CoderPad or HackerRank, easy to medium, sometimes as an online assessment | Practical coding in your interview language, explained aloud |
| Final loop | Live coding, a practical system design round, and behavioral and hiring-manager interviews | One design in the company's domain and two strong behavioral stories |
Processes differ by team, level and office and change over time, so treat this as the common shape candidates report and confirm the specifics with your recruiter.
IoT data and practical systems
Time-series data. Sensors and vehicles send a constant stream of readings. Expect design questions about ingesting and storing time-series data, downsampling it, and answering where thousands of vehicles are right now.
Devices in the field. Gateways lose connectivity in tunnels and rural areas. Discuss buffering on the device, deduplicating on reconnect and rolling out firmware updates in safe stages.
Go and memory. Back-end and device code is often Go, so know goroutines, channels, and how garbage collection affects memory on small devices. Our Go interview questions cover the basics.
Representative problem types
These are the kinds of problems candidates describe, not a leaked question list. Practice the category, not the exact question.
- Parse a small Markdown or HTML snippet into structured output.
- Compute trip distance and idle time from GPS points.
- Design ingestion for millions of sensor readings a minute.
- Detect when a vehicle enters or leaves a geofence.
- Buffer readings offline and upload them in order.
- Design alerts when a sensor value crosses a threshold.
- Easy and medium algorithm problems.
What interviewers score
- Working code: a solution that runs, handles edge cases and is readable by the next engineer.
- Practical judgment: the trade-offs you name and the simplest design that meets the requirement.
- Product sense: understanding who the user is and what failure looks like for them.
- Ownership: examples where you shipped, measured and fixed things yourself.
The behavioral side
Technical rounds decide most outcomes, but every Samsara loop also asks about how you work. Prepare a short story for each of these, with a result and what you learned:
- Something you shipped end to end. Cover the user problem, your decisions, what you measured and what you would change.
- A disagreement with a teammate. Show how you made the decision on evidence and kept the relationship.
- Why this company? Connect its product and engineering problems to the work you want to do next.
Structures and sample answers for the common questions are in our software engineer behavioral answers guide.
A three-week prep plan
- Week 1: practical coding: build small features against an API, parse and transform data, and write tests, in the language you will interview in.
- Week 2: system design for the company's domain, plus two behavioral stories about shipping and fixing something under pressure.
- Week 3: timed mixed problems, a mock interview every other day, and research into the product and its engineering blog.
For practice lists, use LeetCode company-tagged questions and the NeetCode 150 roadmap; for design rounds, read system design building blocks; and compare the practical style of Datadog.
Where CoPilot Interview fits
Most of a Samsara loop is spoken: you explain an approach, defend a trade-off and talk through your past work. CoPilot Interview is an AI interview assistant whose free AI mock interview builds technical and behavioral questions from your résumé and the job description, reads them aloud and scores each spoken answer out of ten, so you can rehearse the explanation as well as the code. The free plan gives 15 minutes a day of live help in sessions of up to 15 minutes, with AI mock interviews included. Online assessments and many coding rounds forbid outside help, so practice beforehand and follow your employer's rules on the day.
Disclosure: CoPilot Interview is our product, so weigh what we say about it accordingly.
Frequently asked questions
What programming language should I use in a Samsara interview?
Go is common for back-end and device work, and TypeScript with React for the web; general coding rounds usually allow other mainstream languages.
Does Samsara send an online assessment?
Some candidates report an online coding assessment on CoderPad or HackerRank after the recruiter call, while others go straight to a live screen. Confirm with your recruiter.
Do I need embedded experience for Samsara?
Only for firmware roles. Back-end and full-stack candidates benefit from understanding how devices with weak connectivity send data, but standard coding and design preparation covers most of the loop.
How should I prepare for Samsara coding questions?
Practice practical problems under time limits, build small features against an API in your interview language, and prepare one system design in Samsara's domain. Explain every solution out loud, because follow-up questions about trade-offs matter as much as the first answer.
Can I use AI tools in a Samsara interview?
Only if the instructions you receive say so. Online assessments and live coding rounds generally forbid outside help, and some companies now state their AI policy in the invitation. Use AI to practice beforehand, and follow your employer's rules.
Practice this interview before the real one
The AI mock interview builds questions from your resume and the job description, reads them aloud and scores each spoken answer out of 10. Included on the free plan.
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