What is an Embedded Engineer at Anduril?

As an Embedded Engineer at Anduril, you are at the critical intersection of advanced software and cutting-edge hardware. Anduril is fundamentally transforming defense technology by building autonomous systems, advanced sensors, and complex networks powered by the Lattice OS. In this role, you are not just writing firmware; you are bringing intelligent machines to life. Your code will directly control systems that operate in high-stakes, real-world environments, making your work vital to the success of the company's mission.

The impact of this position is massive. You will be responsible for the intelligence that runs on the edge, ensuring that sensors process data accurately, power systems operate flawlessly, and autonomous vehicles respond to dynamic conditions in real time. Because Anduril builds highly interdisciplinary products, you will collaborate closely with electrical, mechanical, and software engineering teams. Your ability to bridge the gap between physical hardware constraints and complex software logic is what makes this role both challenging and incredibly rewarding.

Expect a fast-paced, high-performance environment. Anduril tackles uniquely difficult problems at scale, meaning you will face technical challenges that require both deep domain expertise and creative problem-solving. This is a role for engineers who thrive on ownership, are comfortable navigating ambiguity, and are driven by the tangible impact of deploying mission-critical hardware to the field.

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparation is about more than just brushing up on syntax; it requires a holistic review of how you approach complex, constrained engineering problems. Your interviewers will be looking for a blend of deep technical competence and the ability to execute under pressure. Focus your preparation on the following key evaluation criteria:

Embedded Fundamentals & C Programming – You must demonstrate a rigorous understanding of low-level programming. Interviewers will evaluate your grasp of memory management, pointers, bit manipulation, and real-time operating system (RTOS) concepts. You can show strength here by writing clean, highly optimized code that respects hardware constraints.

Algorithmic Problem-Solving – Beyond basic firmware tasks, Anduril expects strong foundational computer science skills. You will be evaluated on your ability to apply core data structures and algorithms to solve logical problems. Practice standard, LeetCode-style questions, but always keep in mind how these algorithms perform in resource-constrained environments.

System-Level Design & Hardware Integration – You are expected to understand the whole system, not just your isolated block of code. Interviewers will assess how you design APIs, parse data from sensors, and manage power systems. Demonstrate this by discussing how your software interacts with physical components and how you handle edge cases in hardware behavior.

Resilience and Culture Fit – The culture at Anduril is intensely mission-driven and can be demanding. Interviewers evaluate your ability to handle stress, communicate effectively with interdisciplinary teams, and take ownership of your work. Highlight past experiences where you successfully navigated difficult trade-offs and delivered results in fast-paced environments.

Interview Process Overview

The interview process for an Embedded Engineer is thorough and designed to test how you think, rather than just checking boxes on a rubric. You will typically begin with a recruiter phone screen to align on your background and the role's requirements. This is often followed by a technical assessment, which could be a take-home challenge involving data parsing or a live technical Zoom screen assessing core programming skills and software fundamentals.

If you progress to the onsite stage, expect a rigorous, multi-round format. A typical onsite loop consists of morning coding interviews, a deep-dive system design or architecture round, and a behavioral interview with a hiring manager. Some teams also incorporate a "Pairing Day" or deep-dive session where you work collaboratively on implementation problems with multiple engineers. Throughout these rounds, interviewers are highly focused on your problem-solving approach and your ability to engage with complex, interdisciplinary concepts.

The process is designed to mimic the actual working environment at Anduril. You will face fair, straightforward questions, but the expectations for technical depth and clarity of thought are exceptionally high.

This visual timeline outlines the typical progression from initial outreach to the final onsite loop. Use this to pace your preparation, ensuring you review core algorithms early for the technical screens while reserving time to practice broader system design and behavioral narratives for the intensive onsite stages.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Your technical and behavioral competencies will be heavily scrutinized across several distinct domains. Understanding these areas will help you direct your study efforts effectively.

Embedded C and Firmware Fundamentals

This is the bedrock of the Embedded Engineer role. Interviewers need to know that you can write safe, efficient, and reliable code that interacts directly with hardware. You must demonstrate absolute comfort with C programming, understanding exactly what your code is doing at the memory and register levels. Strong performance here means writing bug-free code without relying on standard libraries that might be unavailable in a bare-metal environment.

Be ready to go over:

• Bit Manipulation and Masking – Setting, clearing, and toggling bits efficiently.
• Memory Management – Deep understanding of the stack, heap, volatile variables, and pointer arithmetic.
• Interrupt Service Routines (ISRs) – Best practices for writing minimal, efficient interrupt handlers and managing concurrency.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Custom bootloaders, linker scripts, and writing bare-metal drivers from scratch.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Implement a ring buffer in C to handle incoming UART data."
• "Explain the use of the volatile keyword and provide a scenario where omitting it causes a critical failure."
• "Write a function to reverse the bits of an unsigned 32-bit integer."

Algorithmic Problem-Solving

While you are applying for a hardware-adjacent role, Anduril maintains high standards for general software engineering. You will face standard algorithmic coding questions designed to test your logic, optimization skills, and familiarity with core data structures. Strong candidates will quickly identify the optimal approach and write clean, compilable code while communicating their thought process.

Be ready to go over:

• Data Structures – Arrays, linked lists, hash maps, and queues.
• Algorithm Optimization – Time and space complexity analysis (Big-O notation).
• State Machines – Designing finite state machines (FSMs) for control logic.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Graph algorithms for routing or dynamic programming for resource allocation.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Given an array of sensor readings, find the longest contiguous subarray that meets a specific threshold."
• "Implement a queue using two linked lists."
• "Design an algorithm to parse a proprietary binary protocol stream and extract specific payload data."

Hardware Integration and Control Theory

Because Anduril builds complex physical systems, you will be evaluated on your ability to interface software with the real world. This area tests your understanding of sensors, power systems, and basic control logic. You do not need to be an electrical engineer, but you must understand how to read schematics, communicate over standard buses, and implement control loops.

Be ready to go over:

• Communication Protocols – I2C, SPI, UART, and CAN bus fundamentals.
• Control Logic – Implementing multiple conditional statements to manage state transitions safely.
• Sensor Integration – Reading, filtering, and calibrating data from IMUs, GPS, or environmental sensors.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – PID controller implementation and advanced control theory mathematics.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How would you solve controlling a power system using multiple if/else conditional statements to ensure safe state transitions?"
• "Walk me through how you would initialize and read data from an I2C temperature sensor."
• "Describe a time you had to debug an issue where the software logic was correct, but the hardware behaved unexpectedly."

System Design and Architecture

For mid-level and senior roles, you will face a system design round. This evaluates your ability to architect a solution from end to end. Interviewers are looking for how you handle trade-offs between processing power, memory, and power consumption. A strong performance involves driving the conversation, asking the right clarifying questions, and designing a robust, scalable system.

Be ready to go over:

• API Design – Creating simple, intuitive APIs for hardware abstraction layers.
• Data Flow and Parsing – Architecting how data moves from a sensor, through the microcontroller, to a host system.
• Power Management – Designing systems that optimize for battery life and thermal constraints.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Distributed embedded networks and over-the-air (OTA) update architectures.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design the firmware architecture for a remote, battery-powered sensor node that transmits data over RF."
• "How would you structure a simple API to expose hardware peripherals to application-level software?"
• "Design a system to parse high-frequency incoming data streams without blocking critical control loops."

Key Responsibilities

As an Embedded Engineer at Anduril, your day-to-day work is highly dynamic and deeply integrated with the physical products the company builds. You will spend a significant portion of your time writing, reviewing, and testing C/C++ firmware that runs directly on microcontrollers and microprocessors. This software handles everything from basic peripheral initialization to complex sensor fusion and power management.

Collaboration is a massive part of the role. You will rarely work in isolation. You will partner with electrical engineers to review board schematics, ensuring that the hardware design supports the software requirements. You will also work alongside mechanical and systems engineers to understand the physical constraints of the platforms you are building, whether they are autonomous drones, sentry towers, or advanced sensor payloads.

Debugging and field testing are critical responsibilities. You will frequently use oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and multimeters to trace signals and identify where a failure is occurring across the hardware-software boundary. You are expected to take extreme ownership of your subsystems, following them from initial architectural design all the way through to deployment and troubleshooting in real-world, often harsh, environments.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be competitive for the Embedded Engineer role at Anduril, candidates must possess a strong blend of low-level programming expertise and system-level intuition. The engineering culture values individuals who can execute rapidly while maintaining high standards for safety and reliability.

• Must-have technical skills – Expert-level proficiency in C and modern C++. Deep understanding of embedded systems architecture, RTOS fundamentals, and standard communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART). Strong foundational knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms.
• Must-have experience – Proven experience taking embedded products from concept to production. Hands-on experience with hardware debugging tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers) and reading electrical schematics.
• Nice-to-have technical skills – Experience with control theory, power systems management, or specific sensor integration (e.g., radar, optical). Familiarity with Python for scripting and test automation.
• Soft skills – Exceptional interdisciplinary communication. You must be able to explain complex software constraints to hardware engineers and vice versa. A high degree of autonomy, resilience in stressful environments, and a strong bias toward action are essential.

Common Interview Questions

The following questions represent the types of challenges you will face during your interviews. They are drawn from patterns observed in recent candidate experiences and are designed to test both your theoretical knowledge and your practical problem-solving abilities. Use these to guide your practice, focusing on how you arrive at the answer.

Embedded C and Firmware Fundamentals

This category tests your core programming skills and your understanding of how software interacts with hardware at the lowest levels.

• Write a macro to clear the $n$-th bit of a 32-bit integer.
• Explain the difference between a mutex and a semaphore in an RTOS context.
• How do you prevent stack overflow in a deeply embedded system?
• Write a function to determine if the underlying architecture is little-endian or big-endian.
• What are the risks of using dynamic memory allocation (malloc/free) in embedded systems, and what are the alternatives?

Algorithms and Data Structures

These questions evaluate your general computer science fundamentals and your ability to write optimized logic.

• Implement a function to reverse a linked list in place.
• Given a stream of sensor data, design an algorithm to maintain a running median.
• Write a program to detect a cycle in a state machine representation.
• Implement a circular buffer using an array.
• How would you efficiently search for a specific byte pattern in a large, incoming continuous data stream?

System Design and Hardware Integration

This category assesses your ability to architect solutions and manage the interface between software and physical hardware.

• Walk me through the firmware architecture for controlling a power management system using multiple conditional statements.
• Design an API for an I2C temperature sensor that abstracts the hardware details from the application layer.
• How would you design a data parsing module to handle corrupted or dropped packets over a noisy serial connection?
• Describe your approach to debugging an issue where a microcontroller randomly resets in the field.
• Design a control loop to maintain a stable temperature in a system with variable heat loads.

Behavioral and Culture Fit

These questions evaluate your resilience, communication, and alignment with Anduril's fast-paced, mission-driven environment.

• Tell me about a time you had to deliver a critical project under extreme time constraints.
• Describe a situation where you disagreed with a hardware engineer about a system design. How did you resolve it?
• Walk me through a time when you failed to meet a deadline or deliverable. What did you learn?
• How do you prioritize tasks when you have multiple critical bugs reported simultaneously from the field?
• Why do you want to work in defense technology, and why specifically at Anduril?

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the technical interview process? The process is generally rated as average to difficult. While the questions are fair and avoid "trick" puzzles, the expectation for technical rigor is very high. You must be equally comfortable with embedded C nuances, algorithmic optimization, and system-level design.

Q: What is the company culture like for engineers? Anduril operates at a very fast pace with a strong emphasis on mission and impact. The environment can be demanding and is sometimes described as intense or high-pressure. Successful engineers are those who are highly autonomous, resilient, and motivated by the real-world application of their work.

Q: How long does the interview process typically take? From the initial recruiter screen to a final offer, the process usually takes 3 to 5 weeks. However, due to rapid scaling, some candidates experience occasional scheduling delays. Stay proactive and maintain clear communication with your recruiting coordinator.

Q: Do I need prior experience in the defense industry to be hired? No. While defense experience can be a nice-to-have, Anduril frequently hires top-tier engineering talent from consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, and traditional big tech. What matters most is your engineering rigor and your alignment with the company's mission to modernize defense systems.

Q: What should I do if a recruiter misses a scheduled call? Due to the company's rapid growth, logistical hiccups occasionally happen. If a call is missed, remain professional, wait 10-15 minutes on the line, and then send a polite email to reschedule, ensuring your contact number is clearly stated in the body of the email.

Other General Tips

• Listen Intently to the Prompt: Interviewers at Anduril often provide highly detailed problem statements upfront. Avoid interrupting or immediately asking clarifying questions about information that was just delivered. Take notes, absorb the constraints, and save your clarifying questions for the designated time to show you can process complex requirements independently.
• Think Out Loud: Your interviewers care more about how you think than whether you memorize a specific solution. Vocalize your thought process, explain your trade-offs, and discuss why you are choosing a specific data structure or architectural pattern.
• Embrace the Interdisciplinary Mindset: Always frame your answers with the broader system in mind. When discussing firmware, mention how your code impacts power draw, thermal performance, or sensor accuracy. Showing that you care about the hardware will strongly differentiate you.

• Prepare for Ambiguity: System design questions will intentionally lack details. It is your job to define the scope, ask targeted questions about the operating environment, and propose a solution that handles edge cases gracefully.
• Show Extreme Ownership: In behavioral rounds, use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) and focus heavily on the "Action" and "Result." Anduril values engineers who take accountability for end-to-end delivery, so highlight instances where you drove a project to completion despite significant obstacles.

Summary & Next Steps

Securing an Embedded Engineer role at Anduril is a challenging but highly rewarding endeavor. You are interviewing for a position that sits at the bleeding edge of autonomous systems and defense technology. The work you do here will have a tangible, immediate impact on critical national security infrastructure. By mastering embedded C fundamentals, sharpening your algorithmic problem-solving skills, and demonstrating a deep understanding of hardware-software integration, you will position yourself as a standout candidate.

This compensation data provides a baseline for what you can expect at various levels within the company. Use this information to understand the total compensation structure, which typically includes a competitive base salary and significant equity upside, reflecting the high-performance expectations of the role.

Approach your preparation with focus and confidence. The interviewers want to see you succeed and are looking for colleagues who can help them solve incredibly complex problems. Review the evaluation areas thoroughly, practice writing clean code under pressure, and refine your system design narratives. For more detailed insights, practice problems, and community experiences, continue exploring resources on Dataford. You have the foundational skills required; now it is time to showcase your ability to execute at the highest level.