Yandex Software Engineer Onsite Coding Questions
34+ questions from real Yandex Software Engineer Onsite Coding rounds, reported by candidates who interviewed there.
What does the Yandex Onsite Coding round test?
The Yandex onsite coding round is the core technical evaluation. Software Engineer candidates typically see 2-3 algorithm and data structure problems. Problems range from medium to hard difficulty, and interviewers evaluate both correctness and code quality.
Top Topics in This Round
Yandex Software Engineer Onsite Coding Questions
LeetCode #1493: Longest Subarray of 1's After Deleting One Element. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Dynamic Programming, Sliding Window. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
LeetCode #849: Maximize Distance to Closest Person. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#560 Subarray Sum Equals K
LeetCode #560: Subarray Sum Equals K. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Hash Table, Prefix Sum. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#680 Valid Palindrome II
LeetCode #680: Valid Palindrome II. Difficulty: Easy. Topics: Two Pointers, String, Greedy. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#228 Summary Ranges
LeetCode #228: Summary Ranges. Difficulty: Easy. Topics: Array. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#658 Find K Closest Elements
LeetCode #658: Find K Closest Elements. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Two Pointers, Binary Search, Sliding Window, Sorting, Heap (Priority Queue). Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#3 Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters
LeetCode #3: Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Hash Table, String, Sliding Window. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
LeetCode #3105: Longest Strictly Increasing or Strictly Decreasing Subarray. Difficulty: Easy. Topics: Array. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#356 Line Reflection
LeetCode #356: Line Reflection. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Hash Table, Math. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#161 One Edit Distance
LeetCode #161: One Edit Distance. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Two Pointers, String. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#443 String Compression
LeetCode #443: String Compression. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Two Pointers, String. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#125 Valid Palindrome
LeetCode #125: Valid Palindrome. Difficulty: Easy. Topics: Two Pointers, String. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#11 Container With Most Water
LeetCode #11: Container With Most Water. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Two Pointers, Greedy. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#438 Find All Anagrams in a String
LeetCode #438: Find All Anagrams in a String. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Hash Table, String, Sliding Window. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#5 Longest Palindromic Substring
LeetCode #5: Longest Palindromic Substring. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Two Pointers, String, Dynamic Programming. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#986 Interval List Intersections
LeetCode #986: Interval List Intersections. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Two Pointers, Sweep Line. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
LeetCode #238: Product of Array Except Self. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Prefix Sum. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#340 Longest Substring with At Most K Distinct Characters
LeetCode #340: Longest Substring with At Most K Distinct Characters. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Hash Table, String, Sliding Window. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#567 Permutation in String
LeetCode #567: Permutation in String. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Hash Table, Two Pointers, String, Sliding Window. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
#33 Search in Rotated Sorted Array
LeetCode #33: Search in Rotated Sorted Array. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Binary Search. Asked at Yandex in the last 6 months.
What to Expect in the Yandex Onsite Coding Round
The Yandex Software Engineer Onsite Coding round has a specific calibration purpose distinct from other rounds in the loop. Across 34+ verified reports on LeakCode for this exact round type, the consistent expectations: clear scoping of the problem before diving into a solution, explicit reasoning about complexity, structured handling of edge cases, and the ability to discuss trade-offs between two reasonable approaches.
Reports tagged with the Onsite Coding round at Yandex show recurring patterns in difficulty and topic distribution. The Onsite Coding round is typically 45-60 minutes; the interviewer is calibrated against a specific rubric. The discriminator between candidates who advance and candidates who do not is rarely the final correctness of the answer. It is the path: did you clarify, did you verbalize your approach, did you handle edge cases, and did you communicate throughout.
How To Prepare for This Specific Round
Filter the questions below to the most recent reports (past 6-12 months). Questions tagged for this exact round type from this exact company at this exact role level are the highest-signal data available. Older reports may reference questions that have since rotated out of the company's pool.
Practice 4-6 representative problems from this set under timed conditions. The goal is not memorization (companies rotate questions); the goal is to internalize the patterns the interviewer typically reaches for and the depth of follow-up to expect. Reports on LeakCode also tag the typical follow-up depth at this round type, which is the discriminating signal between hire and no-hire calibration.
Onsite Coding Round Timing and Format
The Onsite Coding round at Yandex typically runs 45-60 minutes. Use the first 2-3 minutes to clarify requirements; you should never start coding or designing without verifying the input/output format, constraints, and edge cases out loud. Use the next 5-7 minutes to verbalize your approach before writing any code. The middle 20-30 minutes are implementation. Reserve the final 10 minutes for testing with concrete examples and discussing optimization or trade-offs.
Time budget discipline is one of the most reliable senior-vs-junior discriminators in this round. Strong candidates verbalize where they are in their budget out loud ("I've used about 20 minutes, I have 15 minutes left for testing and one optimization"). This signals engineering maturity to the interviewer and creates positive feedback they can capture in writing.
Common Failure Modes in This Round
Reports tagged "no hire" at Yandex Software Engineer Onsite Coding commonly cite: coding silently without verbalizing approach, jumping to implementation before clarifying requirements, missing edge cases (empty input, single element, very large input), producing working code that the candidate cannot refactor when asked, and failing to test their solution with concrete examples before declaring done.
The single most predictive failure mode in 2025-2026 reports: not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers at all FAANG companies are explicitly trained to weight this dimension. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's notes.
See All 34 Questions from This Round
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