real interview stories, told over a cup of tea ♡
Interview Experiences
3935 interview stories from candidates at 857 companies: how each round went, what was asked and how it ended. Every company page links to practice questions in the same style.
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3935 results
- 15-Minute Intro Call and a 6-Day Work WeekRetell AI · Software Engineer · Senior+ · HR Screen · Oct 2026In progress
On 9/30 an external recruiter reached out to me about the Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (Mandarin) position at Retell AI. We chatted for about 15 minutes, mostly confirming my background, language, location/work authorization, etc., and then they submitted me to the company. On 10/6 the Retell recruiter scheduled the formal intro call. The intro call was about 15-20 minutes. The recruiter spen…
- 20 Minutes of Coding, 10 of System Design, RejectedAtlassian · Frontend Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Oct 2026Rejected
A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn and that's how I got this interview. Right after we talked, the interview invitation came the same day. The recruiter was extremely efficient. I just wanted to get in as fast as possible, so I only gave myself one week to prepare. Not being well prepared was also one of the reasons I failed later. I booked a technical screen for a week out. You can use yo…
- 45-Minute Phone Screen With Merge SegmentsApplied Intuition · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
Old question: merge segments. You also have to think about how to handle slope 0. Solution: a math problem plus merge intervals. Now let me complain about this company's interview. The phone screen was 45 minutes in total: 5 min intro + 5 min Q&A, so that leaves 35 min for the problem, and you still have to communicate the whole time. 🙄 Even if I had seen it before and practiced in Java, I'd be d…
- A 20-Minute HR Screen, Ten Questions, Late Recruiter CallStripe · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Oct 2026
This is the HR screen right after the OA. I booked 1:30 PM in the afternoon and the HR was 15 minutes late straight away. In the end I sent an email saying I was free for the next hour and he could call me any time, and right after I hit send the HR's call came in. The whole thing took 20 minutes. What were the main questions in the HR screening? Background Question "Would you tell me a bit of ba…
- A Compilation on Culture, Practical Coding, and TimelinesAnthropic · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026
A clarification: this is a compilation, not my own interview experience. The content comes from public interview reports on this forum, Blind, Glassdoor, and Interviewing. It took me quite a long time to organize. Anyone who's interviewed there is welcome to add information or corrections. There's a forum compilation of 25 posts with a very complete question list, so I won't repeat the questions…
- A Huge YAML Merge Problem and a Knapsack That Wants QuickselectGoogle · Software Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
The first-round interviewer was really nice, but the problem was super long. Reading and understanding the problem plus the examples can take maybe 20 minutes. Roughly, it is merging two trees (YAML files), where every node has merge rules, and there are a lot of rules. The approach is DFS plus rule matching. The second-round interviewer gave me a knapsack problem, but for this one DP or DFS with…
- A Project Deep Dive and Real-Time Data System DesignAutodesk · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026
Only two rounds in total First round: project deep dive Second round: system design - "Design a real-time data processing system that consumes changes from operational databases, combines data from multiple sources, and maintains a queryable output dataset with low latency. Walk through the architecture you would choose and how you would handle correctness, updates and deletes, ordering, state, f…
- A Surprise Agentic Search Design RoundWalmart Labs · Machine Learning Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2026
Sharing a data point. I mainly used this as a warm-up and for practice, and I pretty much didn't plan to join. This position was entirely team-specific hiring, so it could vary a lot case by case. The logistics were quite chaotic, but the conversations themselves were a pretty good experience. The first round was with the hiring manager: a casual half-hour conversation about project experience an…
- A Token-Bucket Take-home and Cross-Domain LoginOkta · Backend Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2026
HM Screening A conversation with the hiring manager, mainly about past project experience, behavioral questions, and various real workplace scenarios. Take-Home Assignment Build a rate limiter in Node.js using the token bucket algorithm. Create an Express application that can read a configuration file. Expose an API that returns a rate-limit response. Technical Round - Code Review & Debugging Cod…
- Agent Post-training Phone Screens and a Colab PyTorch Pipeline I Could Not FinishFigma · Machine Learning Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
Sharing my Figma MLE interview experience (Agent Post-training). A recruiter reached out to me in mid-September. The role is mainly about Agent-related post-training work, and I then scheduled a half-hour recruiter call. One: Recruiter screen (30 mins) The recruiter described the background of the role and what the work involves, then asked about my background and a few common BQs, including: Wal…
- AI Coding Round Designing a Splitwise-Style Settlement AppAtlys · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
AI Coding Round Design a Splitwise-like expense tracking and debt settlement app, and implement a smart settlement feature. In the first part of the interview we did LLD and HLD design, and I needed to make clear the following: Functional and non-functional requirements API design Core entity design In the later part of the interview, I was asked to write code without using AI, implementing two c…
- AI-Allowed Phone Screen on Detecting Attacks in LogsFireworks · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026Rejected
It was a 45-minute phone screen. The recruiter sent me the problem in advance and said I could use AI for coding. The problem was how to detect security attacks in a pile of text-format logs according to given rules. The interviewer had already given me the rules (for example, a source IP accessing more than 10 different destination IPs within 10 minutes). I asked whether I could use AI, and the…
- AI-Assisted Virtual Onsite Building a Query API over MCAP Driving LogsApplied Intuition · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026Rejected
This is the same as the earlier thread about this interview. The format is MCAP, and the content is car driving data, like video, images, location information... folder structure of the logs: MCAP defines a message schema, and the message content is ProtoBuf encoded. Every message has a timestamp, and the API I had to implement needs to query by timestamp, so an index is needed. My idea was to st…
- Back-to-Back Phone Screens: Behavioral, Then an HTTP RouterGoogle · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
After I finished the psychological test, they scheduled my phone interviews right away. It was two rounds back to back, 45 minutes each, and I don't know if that's normal. The first round was a behavioral round with a really nice interviewer. All the questions were the usual ones: what do you do if you disagree with a coworker, what do you do if you disagree with another team, what do you do if a…
- CodeSignal OA With Hidden Tests and a Painful ID CheckCapital One · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Oct 2026
Fresh OA from an hour ago!! Background: I don't need sponsorship. A small side story: uploading my ID took forever this time. Maybe the lighting was bad, or because I was holding the ID right up against the camera, but it kept telling me it couldn't read the text. In the end it only verified after I screenshotted an old passport scan from a folder on my computer. Luckily I wasn't in a hurry... Ev…
- Codility OA, 115 Minutes, Three Easy ProblemsDRW · Software Engineer · Intern · Online Assessment · Oct 2026
Overall pretty easy, with plenty of time to spare. The first two problems have no complexity requirement, pure brute force is fine, and the algorithm for the third one isn't hard either. Given an array, you can change the value of any three numbers. What is the smallest possible difference between the max and the min? Given a string made of lowercase letters, define a balanced string as one where…
- Dasher Pay Phone Screen with a Surprise Sweep Line and Peak Windows Follow-upDoorDash · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
This was the dasher pay question from the interview reports on the forum. I spent a good chunk of time up front discussing the requirements and the data shape. I wanted to get part 1 done with a simple algorithm first and worry about the rest later, and I had already finished writing it, but the interviewer was clearly unhappy and hinted that I should use a sweep line. Changing the code took quit…
- Data Class Design Then a 3-Level Org Chart Problem, RejectedMerge · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026Rejected
The questions were quite different from the earlier interview reports. The difficulty isn't high, but you need to write code fast. The interview was split into two parts. Part 1: I was first given a set of API return values and asked to design a common data class to store that data. This part took about 20-25 minutes, and they also asked a few simple questions about DB and system design. Part 2:…
- Debugging Exercise, LeetCode, System Design and AI QuestionsPalo Alto Networks · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026Offer
To get ready, I worked through a well-known list of 150 LeetCode problems, the lessons from an online system design course, that course's drills for debugging and refactoring code that already exists, and a few YouTube walkthroughs of classic system design questions. In system design I mostly picked simpler problems and read up on fundamentals such as APIs, caching, databases and concurrency. I a…
- Debugging Logistic Regression, Then Job Click Prediction DesignLinkedIn · Machine Learning Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
The first part was 30 minutes of debugging a logistic regression implementation. I spent too much time on the sigmoid derivative at the start, so I didn't finish the last step, computing the gradients. Then came 20 minutes of ML design: Predict whether a member will click on a displayed job using member features, job content, and interaction history. I had to define everything myself: what data i…
- Delivery Cost Calculation with an AI AssistantRippling · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026In progress
I did the Rippling technical screen last week. It was online coding with an AI assistant. The problem was the Delivery Cost calculation that has shown up here before (the calculate_compensation version). Summary of the problem: a food delivery platform pays drivers per delivery, and the cost is duration × that driver's hourly rate. You implement a dashboard system whose core is a single number, t…
- Expected a Relaxed Research Chat, Got LLM and AI Agent QuestionsWells Fargo · Data Scientist · Intern · Technical Screen · Oct 2026
I just finished my Wells Fargo interview. The role is Applied Computational Intelligence intern. Before the interview I saw on RedNote that it's just a chat about your research and very relaxed, so I let my guard down, prepared a bit around my resume and went in. It turned out they asked these questions: Behavioral question. I gave an example from my research, and they followed up three times on…
- Failed the Phone Screen on a Malloc ImplementationOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026Rejected
A recruiter reached out to me. I think my background was a good fit, because they only screened me a little before scheduling the phone interview. I got one question, malloc, with some tests provided. Part 1 was malloc/free. I wrote it by hand, using a list to simulate a linked list, and I couldn't get it to pass in one go. I debugged for a while, then the interviewer gave me a hint, I rewrote a…
- Fault-Tolerant Queue Coding and Online Devbox Design Phone ScreensOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026In progress
I interviewed last week. After work I prepared on and off for over a month, and I went through basically all the questions on the forum. The phone screen was two rounds, one coding and one design. The coding question was a fault tolerant queue. I had to implement enqueue, reserve, fail and a DLQ, and they gave unit tests that all had to pass. The first part went fairly smoothly and all the tests…
- Fault-Tolerant Work Queue Coding Plus a Metrics Monitoring Design RoundOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2026In progress
Coding Fault-Tolerant Work Queue I solved the first part but got stuck on one silly bug which took a long time, but I got it to green eventually. I coded up the second part quickly but couldn't run the code due to time. The interviewer said it should be okay, that I was very close, and that I am good. System Design Metrics monitoring variation I did okay in this round. The interviewer didn't seem…
- Five Back-to-Back Rounds After a Layoff, Offer Within WeeksLinkedIn · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026Offer
A layoff recently pushed me to start job hunting. A LinkedIn recruiter reached out in the second week of August. The phone screen happened the week after that. About a week later I got a call to set up the next stage, and the recruiter gave me two weeks to get ready for the full loop. They offered either a virtual or an in-person loop and I went virtual. I would have liked a gap of two or three d…
- Five Timed OA Parts for the FDE RoleCresta · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Oct 2026
I applied for the Cresta Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) role, on the AI Agent side. I just finished the OA, and it is very different from the usual pure-algorithm OA. Overall it leans toward practical coding, understanding requirements, and real engineering ability. Sharing the question types for reference. The OA has 5 parts in total, each one timed separately, with these limits: 10 / 30 / 20 /…
- Food Review System Design That Was All DB Schema, Then a Debug Round, RejectedDoorDash · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026Rejected
I was rejected a few weeks ago, so I'm posting this now. The phone screen was nothing special, the classic payment question, and the interviewer was very helpful. Onsite: Hiring manager round. Nothing much, it's basically just BQ, and they all came out about the same. System design, the classic food review. The interviewer barely discussed anything with me the whole time. Basically I was the one…
- Four Onsite Rounds with Product Execution and a Likes System DesignFaire · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026
There were 4 rounds in total. Round 1, coding: You are tasked with developing a function to determine the peak bike demand for a bike rental service. The service processes all bookings ahead of time, and your function must calculate the peak number of bikes needed at any point in time to satisfy all bookings. Round 2, product execution. I honestly had no idea how to prepare for this one. The ques…
- Four-Level Parcel Attribute OA, 410/600Airbnb · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Oct 2026
The AI-organized question lists I used for the past three months of OAs were basically useless, and I didn't get any repeat questions. It's the same as what people on the forum have been reporting lately: I mass-applied and got the OA instantly. But it's still the 90-minute, four-level format. The problem gives you a batch of Parcels. Each Parcel has its own ParcelId and attributes (key, value),…
