What Is the Synthesia Interview Process Like? (Round by Round)

Synthesia publishes a five stage process in its engineering job postings. The first two stages are a recruiter call of about 30 minutes and a conversation about your past projects. Then come a technical assessment, a technical discussion of about 60 minutes, and a leadership call. The technical assessment is a take-home task for most engineering roles, while tech lead roles get a 90 minute live coding session instead.

Synthesia states that the process "can be done in seven working days", although candidates on Glassdoor report about three weeks on average. Exact rounds vary by role and level, so read your own posting closely.

Quick Overview

Stage 1: Recruiter Call

A technical recruiter runs a short video call. Expect questions about your background, your reasons for applying, and your location and timing. Synthesia has said in press interviews that it does not weigh university names heavily. It cares more about what you built, the impact it had, and how much of it you owned. The motivation question appears here first, so prepare it with How to answer why Synthesia.

Stage 2: Past Projects Conversation

The postings describe 30 to 45 minutes with engineers or an engineering manager about past projects, although one candidate reported this call was with the technical talent lead. Pick one project where you made the main decisions, and prepare the reasons, the alternatives you rejected, the numbers, and what broke. Interviewers ask follow-up questions until they reach the limit of your real involvement.

Stage 3: Take-Home Task or Live Coding

The postings call the take-home "syntax agnostic" with no deadline, which means you choose the programming language. Candidates report about 2 to 4 hours of work for engineering roles, and more for research roles. One reported task was a Python utility that processes a stream of video frames. Treat the task as production code: clear structure, tests, and a short README that explains how to run it.

For tech lead roles, the posting lists a 90 minute live coding session instead, which it states is not LeetCode style and calls a collaboration exercise with an engineer. Synthesia's head of talent has said the process now tests customer empathy, product sense, and the ability to gather requirements before coding. The same talent lead has said the process was rebuilt because AI coding tools changed the job. Ask clarifying questions before you write anything.

Stage 4: Technical Discussion

This round is about 60 minutes, and candidates report a call with two engineers about the take-home solution, including improvements and possible extensions. Be ready to explain every choice in your code and what you would change with more time.

For tech lead roles, the posting names this round a system design interview, "usually about a real problem we had in production". One reported design question asked for a video ingestion and annotation pipeline. The full topic list is in What to expect in the Synthesia system design interview.

Stage 5: Leadership Call

The final call is 30 to 45 minutes with a senior leader. One candidate reported that this was with the VP of Product. The posting says it covers examples of collaboration, growth, and details of your future team.

Synthesia states four values: Put the Customer First, Own it & Go Direct, Be Fast & Experimental, and Make the Journey Fun. Expect questions that test these directly, so prepare one story per value, each with a measurable result.

Timeline and Decision

Synthesia says the full process can finish in seven working days, while candidates on Glassdoor report about 23 days on average. About 72 percent of reported experiences are positive, and candidates rate the difficulty near the middle of the scale.

The most common praise is that the interviews match the daily work of the job, and one candidate reported prompt feedback between stages. The most common complaint is silence after a stage. Details on waits and follow-up are in How long does it take to hear back after a Synthesia interview.

Questions to Ask Them

Every round ends with time for your questions. Synthesia's engineering blog describes a culture with one meeting a week, where decisions happen in writing and engineers ship features every few days. To make a decision, engineers draft a request for comments document that anyone in the company can question.

Good questions here: how a decision gets made without a meeting, how the take-home is graded, and what on-call means for the video pipeline. Synthesia also states that a fixed part of the team works only on AI safety and ethics, so ask how that team affects product decisions. A specific question proves you researched the company.

How to Prepare

• Drill practical coding. Grokking the Coding Interview teaches the patterns behind stream and array problems like the reported frame task.
• Practice product-focused design. Grokking the System Design Interview covers the queues, storage, and delivery blocks that video pipelines use.
• Prepare one deep project story. Write down decisions, alternatives, numbers, and failures before the first call.
• Read the product pages. Interviewers favor candidates who know what Synthesia actually sells: AI avatars, voices, video translation, and interactive video.