While the exact questions you face will depend on your interviewers and the specific squad you are interviewing for, the following examples illustrate the patterns and themes commonly explored at Arlo Technologies. Focus on understanding the underlying concepts rather than memorizing answers.

Mobile System Design & Architecture

These questions test your ability to structure scalable apps, manage complex state, and handle real-time data flows from physical devices.

• Design the architecture for the Arlo mobile app's main dashboard, which must display real-time statuses for multiple cameras and sensors.
• How would you design a robust, offline-first feature that allows users to review cached video clips when they have no internet connection?
• Walk me through how you would architect the device onboarding flow, considering BLE discovery, Wi-Fi credential transfer, and cloud registration.
• How do you manage the state of the application when a user has multiple homes, each with dozens of different smart devices?
• Design a system to efficiently download, cache, and render a continuous stream of high-resolution AI-generated event thumbnails.

Core Platform (iOS/Android) & Coding

These questions dive into the specifics of your chosen platform, evaluating your knowledge of memory, concurrency, and UI rendering.

• Explain how you would identify and resolve a memory leak caused by a retain cycle in a complex view controller or fragment.
• How do you ensure smooth 60fps scrolling in a list view that contains complex UI elements and asynchronous image loading?
• Write a function to efficiently parse a large, nested JSON payload containing thousands of motion events without blocking the main thread.
• Describe the differences between various concurrency mechanisms on your platform (e.g., GCD vs. Operations, or Coroutines vs. RxJava).
• How do you handle app state restoration if the OS kills your application while it is in the background?

IoT, Networking, and Edge Cases

These questions assess your ability to build resilient software that gracefully handles the unpredictable nature of wireless networks and hardware.

• How would you implement exponential backoff for network retries when the app fails to reach the Arlo cloud servers?
• Describe your approach to securing sensitive user data (like Wi-Fi passwords) both in transit and at rest on the device.
• What happens to your app if the user puts their phone in airplane mode halfway through a critical device setup process?
• How do you optimize battery usage when your app needs to maintain a persistent connection to receive push notifications for security alerts?
• Explain how you would debug an issue where a camera successfully pairs via Bluetooth but consistently fails to join the user's Wi-Fi network.

Behavioral and Product Sense

These questions evaluate your cross-functional collaboration skills, leadership, and alignment with Arlo's user-centric mission.

• Tell me about a time you discovered a critical bug right before a major app release. How did you handle it?
• Describe a situation where you disagreed with a Product Manager about the priority of a feature. How did you reach a resolution?
• Give an example of a time you used user feedback or app analytics to drive a technical improvement in your application.
• How do you balance the need to refactor legacy code with the pressure to deliver new product features on a tight deadline?
• Tell me about a time you mentored a junior engineer or improved the engineering practices of your team.

Core Mobile Fundamentals and UI/UX

Your deep knowledge of the specific mobile platform (iOS or Android) is paramount. We evaluate your understanding of the platform's inner workings, from rendering pipelines to background execution limits. A strong candidate does not just rely on third-party libraries but understands the native APIs and how to build smooth, intuitive, and accessible user interfaces.

Be ready to go over:

• Multithreading and Concurrency – Using GCD, Operations, Coroutines, or Rx to keep the main thread unblocked during heavy network or processing tasks.
• Memory Management – Identifying and fixing memory leaks, understanding ARC (iOS) or Garbage Collection (Android), and optimizing memory footprints for background tasks.
• UI Rendering and Animations – Building custom, responsive views, handling complex layouts, and creating fluid animations that guide the user through complex workflows.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Deep linking strategies, push notification payloads and background processing, and integrating with accessibility APIs.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Explain how you would debug a UI stutter that occurs when scrolling through a list of high-resolution camera event recordings."
• "Describe the lifecycle of a mobile application and how you handle saving state when the app is abruptly sent to the background."
• "How do you ensure your application remains responsive when parsing a massive JSON payload from our analytics backend?"

IoT Integration and Network Connectivity

Because Arlo Technologies builds physical security products, our mobile apps must communicate flawlessly with hardware. This evaluation area tests your ability to handle the unpredictable nature of wireless connectivity. Interviewers look for candidates who understand networking protocols and can gracefully handle failures, timeouts, and retries without degrading the user experience.

Be ready to go over:

• Network Protocols – Deep understanding of RESTful APIs, WebSockets, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Wi-Fi provisioning.
• Error Handling and Retry Logic – Implementing exponential backoff, handling intermittent connectivity drops, and providing meaningful feedback to the user.
• Security and Authentication – OAuth, token management, secure enclave usage, and encrypting payloads over the air.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Direct peer-to-peer device communication, handling MQTT protocols, and firmware over-the-air (OTA) update flows.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How do you handle a scenario where the mobile app loses its connection to the camera halfway through a critical firmware update?"
• "Explain the process of discovering a BLE device and establishing a secure connection to pass Wi-Fi credentials."
• "What strategies would you use to minimize latency when requesting a live video feed from a sleeping battery-powered camera?"

Behavioral and Cross-Functional Alignment

At Arlo Technologies, a Mobile Engineer does not work in a silo. You will partner with Product Managers who are focused on the customer care ecosystem, UX designers optimizing the setup journey, and backend engineers delivering AI/CV analytics. We evaluate your communication skills, empathy for the user, and ability to navigate ambiguity and conflicting priorities.

Be ready to go over:

• Conflict Resolution – How you handle disagreements on technical direction or product features with stakeholders.
• User-Centric Thinking – Demonstrating that you prioritize the end-user's experience and safety over purely technical conveniences.
• Mentorship and Leadership – How you elevate the skills of your team, conduct code reviews, and advocate for engineering best practices.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Leading cross-functional incident response for a critical production mobile bug.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you had to push back on a Product Manager's feature request because it would severely impact app performance."
• "Describe a situation where you had to quickly learn a new technology or domain to deliver a critical project."
• "How do you balance the need to ship a feature quickly with the need to maintain a high-quality, scalable codebase?"