How Electronic Arts Interviews in 2026: Process, Questions & What They Score

1. 01

   Convert string A to string B.

   String manipulation under constrained moves, where the campus version asks for the fewest swap or replace operations.

2. 02

   Implement A* pathfinding on a grid (often framed as a game map with traversable cells and obstacles).

   Tests heuristic graph search on a grid with obstacles, using a priority queue and an admissible distance estimate.

3. 03

   Given a 2D grid representing a game map where 1 is a traversable path and 0 is an obstacle, find the shortest path between two points.

   Tests grid graph traversal, typically breadth-first search, for a shortest path around obstacles.

4. 04

   Detect a cycle in an undirected graph.

   Tests graph traversal with DFS or union-find, ignoring the parent edge so an undirected edge is not counted as a cycle.

5. 05

   Implement a data structure that supports efficient insertion, deletion and retrieval of the median element.

   Tests data structure design, such as two heaps or an ordered tree, to keep the median available under inserts and deletes.

6. 06

   Implement a flexible event system for in-game rewards.

   Tests object-oriented design of an extensible event or observer system with pluggable reward rules.

7. 07

   Find a loop in a linked list.

   Tests linked-list cycle detection, typically Floyd's two-pointer method with constant extra space.

8. 08

   Add two numbers represented by linked lists.

   Tests linked-list traversal with carry handling, including a variant that returns the result in reverse order.

9. 09

   Print the left view of a binary tree.

   Tests level-order or depth-first traversal of a binary tree that records the first node seen at each depth.

10. 10

    Find the number of ways to reach the Nth stair.

    Tests dynamic programming on a recurrence for counting paths to the Nth stair.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

1. 01

   How would you design matchmaking for a large multiplayer game that balances skill, latency and queue time?

   Tests matching service design and the trade-off between match quality, latency and queue time.

2. 02

   Design the backend for a game leaderboard.

   Tests ranked-data storage choice and concurrent score updates at low latency, such as sorted sets or sharded databases.

3. 03

   How would you build the backend for an Ultimate Team style mode when a new content drop pushes traffic to its peak?

   Tests capacity planning, caching and load shedding for a predictable traffic spike on a content drop.

4. 04

   Design a content delivery strategy for distributing game updates and patches.

   Tests CDN and cache design for large patch distribution: bandwidth cost, latency and update integrity.

5. 05

   Explain how you would design and implement a scalable, secure multiplayer system for a video game.

   Tests scalable multiplayer server architecture plus security concerns such as authentication and cheating.

6. 06

   How would you track per-player battle-pass progression at scale while keeping stat updates consistent?

   Tests per-player state storage at scale with consistent updates and rate limiting, such as sharding and idempotent writes.

7. 07

   How would you hot-fix a live game without taking servers down?

   Tests live-ops delivery design: data-only patches, CDN content updates and live-config systems without downtime.

8. 08

   How would you detect and respond to an exploit in a live game economy (for example gold farming in an Ultimate Team trade market) without punishing honest players?

   Tests anomaly detection on economy telemetry and graduated enforcement that limits false positives for honest players.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

1. 01

   Design an elevator system at the class level: how do you decide which lift serves which floor, and how do you handle a new lift being added?

   Tests object-oriented low-level design and dispatch scheduling for lifts, with class and activity diagrams requested.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

1. 01

   Tell me about yourself.

2. 02

   Tell me about a project you have listed on your resume. What was your role in that project?

3. 03

   Why are you interested in the role? Why EA?

4. 04

   What is your favorite EA game and why?

5. 05

   Are you a gamer?

1. 01

   Tell me about a time you disagreed with a technical decision.

2. 02

   How did you handle a business requirement that conflicted with engineering best practices?

3. 03

   Describe a disagreement with a teammate from another discipline. How did you resolve it?

4. 04

   Tell me about a time you worked with a difficult team member.

5. 05

   Tell me about a time a plan fell apart. How did you adapt?

6. 06

   Describe a situation where you received constructive criticism from a colleague, and how you addressed their feedback.

7. 07

   Can you describe a challenging project and how you overcame obstacles?

8. 08

   Can you give an example of a time when you had to troubleshoot and resolve a challenging technical issue?

9. 09

   How do you learn a proprietary engine or a large codebase you have never seen before?

10. 10

    Tell me about a time you used an AI tool at work. Where did you trust its output, and where did you check it?

11. 11

    Tell me about a specific time you identified a performance bottleneck or a memory leak in a game engine.

12. 12

    How do you balance player experience against monetization in a free-to-play game?

1. 01

   Walk me through how you would find and fix a frame-time spike that appears on only one console.

   Tests profiling method: capture frame timings, isolate the CPU, GPU or memory cause, and diagnose platform-specific behavior.

2. 02

   How would you approach optimizing a game engine for performance improvements?

   Tests profiling-driven optimization across CPU, GPU, memory and threading in a game engine.

3. 03

   Implement a fixed-step physics integrator.

   Tests a fixed-timestep simulation loop with an accumulator and numerical integration, decoupled from render rate.

4. 04

   How would you handle spatial partitioning for a 100,000-actor scene?

   Tests spatial data structures such as grids, quadtrees or BVH trees for broad-phase queries over many actors.

5. 05

   How would you implement lag compensation, rewinding authoritative server state to the moment a client fired a shot?

   Tests server-side lag compensation: rewinding authoritative state to validate a hit against the shooter's view.

6. 06

   What are virtual functions?

   Tests C++ dynamic dispatch: vtables, overriding and virtual destructors.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

1. 01

   After launch, how would you decide whether a game mode needs rebalancing, and what data would you look at?

   Tests choosing balance telemetry such as win and pick rates and reading it to decide on tuning changes.

2. 02

   What metrics would you use to judge the health of a live-service game across a season?

   Tests defining live-service health metrics such as retention, engagement and economy balance across a season.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.