Reddit Experience · 2026 Q1 · Palo Alto

Palo Alto Networks SWE (Masters) Final Loop. What should I expect in the System Design round?

MLE System Design Staff Easy
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Interview Experience

Hi everyone, I recently advanced to the final technical loop for the Staff Software Engineer (Masters) role at Palo Alto Networks, which consists of 3 technical interviews including coding, system des

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Hi everyone, I recently advanced to the final technical loop for the Staff Software Engineer (Masters) role at Palo Alto Networks, which consists of 3 technical interviews including coding, system design, and behavioral questions. I’ve prepared quite a bit for LeetCode-style problems, but I’m trying to understand how much emphasis Palo Alto puts on system design versus DSA in these rounds. For those who’ve gone through the process, how deep does the system design discussion usually go (high-level architecture vs detailed APIs/data models/scaling)? Also curious whether all three rounds include coding, and if the difficulty is typically LC easy/medium, and how much time interviewers spend doing a deep dive into past projects. My background is mainly in systems programming (C/C++), embedded systems and ML systems, so I’m wondering how closely the interviews tie into that. Would appreciate any insights from people who recently interviewed there.
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