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Instacart 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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22 results
- Two Coding Rounds, System Design on Inventory, Waiting on ResultsInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2026In progress
While preparing I kept grinding system design, and it turned out my coding wasn't as fast as I thought it would be. One round was "Calculate Equation Expression": you're given a set of variable assignments and have to compute the value of a specified variable. Part one: the right-hand side is either a number or another variable, so you just recurse down. Part two adds addition and subtraction, an…
- A 90-Minute AI-Assisted OA and Next-Day RejectionInstacart · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Sep 2026Rejected
I took the Instacart Full-Stack Engineer Assessment on Codesignal on September, after referred by an employee of the company. It was similar to what posted in the platform here: 5 questions, 90 minutes. Two questions involved chatting with the AI to get the requirements. Two AI assisted Coding with Claude Code, and One bug fixing question withouot AI. There was a tab that showed the live results…
- A Full-Stack CodeSignal Challenge With No Tests to Check My WorkInstacart · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Sep 2026Rejected
I recently completed an Instacart CodeSignal assessment that was very different from the usual LeetCode-style rounds. It was a full-stack repository-based assessment, and some sections required me to have conversations with an AI "Product Manager" before making changes. Very annoying. Because unlike other CodeSignal rounds there are no tests to test against!! So I had no idea how well I did and u…
- AI Debugging and Unclear Coding AssumptionsInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
The author reports an unsuccessful Instacart backend interview process involving CodeSignal assessments and human-led coding. The first onsite segment included a 90-minute library-application exercise and two hour-long coding interviews. AI was available for the application task, but only to explain code and help localize bugs, not to provide direct fixes. The author says the required changes ult…
- Fast Coding and a Difficult Bar RaiserInstacart · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
The virtual onsite had two coding rounds, one design round, and one bar-raiser round. The coding questions were ones from interview reports, and easier than the versions on the forum. I breezed through both. For the calculate-expression question, the interviewer said in part two that there would always be spaces around the +, =, and - signs, so parsing was straightforward. In part three, the only…
- Grocery Pricing Coding, Inventory System Design, and a 20-Minute BehavioralInstacart · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
Two coding rounds, one system design round, and one behavioral round. Coding question 1 Given input strings in the format SKUid|SKUNAME|QUANTITY|Price, output the total quantity and the total price in dollars. The price in the input is in cents. Watch out for bad input. Besides the input above, there is also a discount input, in the formats SKUid|axf|20 and SKUid|bxf|5|2. The first format is a 20…
- Library OA, Pricing, and Inventory DesignInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
I translated this passage into Chinese as follows: All the questions I received were exactly the same as those in another post. 0) OA: A full-stack CodeSignal repository test, with AI. A book/library management system. 1) Coding problem 1: The first problem was translating expressions (T1 = T4). 2) Coding problem 2: Calculate the total price of products in an array of strings, in the format sku|p…
- Two Coding Rounds, a Manager BQ Chat, and a System Design RoundInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
Two rounds of coding, and both were problems that had already been posted elsewhere before. The first one: the input is a transaction record and a set of discounts, and the discounts come in two types — one is a straight percentage off, the other is buy x get y free. The result you need to return is the best (lowest) price. There were 3 parts total, and I only got through the second part before t…
- An API Data-Ingestion Gap Ended the ProcessInstacart · AI Analytics Lead II · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
There was no interview experience for this role on the forum, so I am sharing mine. From the job description, this role looks like an analytics engineer plus a product analyst. With the impact of AI, one person really can do all of this work. Process: After a friend referred me, the recruiter reached out. Online assessment: six or seven SQL questions, not hard. I passed. HM interview: the HM seem…
- Five-Round AI Online AssessmentInstacart · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026In progress
I barely scraped by. As far as I can tell, there's currently only one question in the question bank — a library book search/borrowing system. There's already a very detailed writeup of this question in another post, so I'll just add a few of my own thoughts here: For round 1 and round 4, when talking to the AI PM, try to put all your questions into a single prompt and have the AI PM answer everyt…
- L5 Interviews in Canada and Team MatchingInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026In progress
It took almost a month after I applied for HR to reach out. I had almost thought I'd been rejected. The OA was the vibe-coding OA that people have been talking about a lot on the forum lately. After doing it myself, I felt that ten minutes to communicate with the AI product manager was nowhere near enough, unless I used speech-to-text input. Onsite 1: Calculate Equation Expression. Onsite 2: A re…
- A Single CodeSignal OA Question With Five Escalating Follow-upsInstacart · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2026In progress
The first step was an OA on CodeSignal. There was a lot of identity verification along the way — anti-cheating checks. It was one question with multiple follow-ups, getting progressively harder. The OA email said you didn't need to finish everything, and honestly I don't think it's possible to finish it all — 90 minutes, 5 parts. The problem gave you template code. Implement account creation: cre…
- Instacart Data Scientist interview: case study and SQL screenInstacart · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Jul 2026
One part of my process felt light technically for how long it took. After a recruiter-style step, I completed a live case study that lasted 1.5 hours. I used Python, or another tool of my choice, for the main technical task. The case study took up most of the time; I also gave a presentation and answered questions from people presented as stakeholders. In a separate recruiter-to-tech-screen path,…
- Hit With a Brand-New Question, Failed on BQInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jun 2026Rejected
A totally new question I'd never seen before, and I was the one who got hit with it. I feel like every question in this loop had a pretty large amount of code, so everyone should practice a lot. I think I failed because of the new question and the BQ — I prepared for BQ the Amazon way, but in practice it felt more like a casual conversation, and I wasn't quite ready for that. Coding round: the cl…
- A 5-Part OA That Was Basically Vibe-Coding With ClaudeInstacart · Backend Engineer · Senior+ · Online Assessment · May 2026Rejected
I've compiled some tips I saw online and added my own experience. The deadline was two weeks. What surprised me was that this OA was completely different from the Instacart OAs I had seen discussed before. It was a 5-part assessment, and the overall format felt more like "AI-assisted full-stack feature implementation" than a traditional coding assessment. Time limit was 90 minutes. The assessment…
- Product Sense, Experiment Design, and SQL in 45 MinutesInstacart · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Feb 2026
Overall the experience was good. The interviewer was very nice and the conversation flowed smoothly. In 45 minutes we covered product sense, experiment design, experiment analysis, and SQL. Question 1 How to investigate a metric decline. Pretty standard question. Seasonality, product changes, user segments, external competition — anything reasonable works. Question 2 If you were launching a new p…
- Five Questions on Product Sense, Experiment Design, and SQLInstacart · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Dec 2025
Overall the experience was good. The interviewer was very nice, and communication was smooth. The 45 minutes covered product sense, experiment design, experiment analysis, and SQL. Question 1 How to investigate a metric decline. Pretty standard question. Seasonality, product changes, user segments, external competition — as long as it's reasonable, that's fine. Question 2 If you want to launch a…
- Four Rounds Including a Bar Raiser Case and a Project PresentationInstacart · Data Scientist · Onsite · Dec 2025
Four rounds. Round 1 — Problem Solving (30 min): We partnered with a local grocery store to add a smart cart. Users could use the smart cart to find this store's own products and prices, and at the same time see products and prices from other stores on the Instacart app through the same cart. They asked whether this is a good idea, what the hypothesis would be, which metrics to look at, and how t…
- Four Onsite Rounds Including a Bar Raiser CaseInstacart · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025
Four rounds. Round 1 — Problem Solving (30 mins): partnered with a local grocery store to add a smart cart that lets users find that store's own products and prices on the smart cart, and at the same time see products and prices from other stores on the Instacart app through the same cart. Asked whether this is a good idea, what the hypothesis would be, which metrics to look at, and how to design…
- HR Screen, Take-Home, and Two BQ Rounds I Didn't PassInstacart · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
I. First was an HR call. They asked me to tell them about myself, about my related experience (Data/Strategy), sponsorship, and why this role. After it wrapped up they sent me a sponsorship intake form to make sure I'd actually be able to work here. II. Then came the take-home challenge. The day after I filled out the form they sent it over — not hard, 7 or 8 questions, step by step. Two tables:…
- VO Split Into VO1/VO2, Karat AI-Coding RoundInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2025
I got hit with Instacart's VO reform. The onsite is now split into two parts, VO1 and VO2 — if you fail VO1, there's no VO2, that's just it. VO1 has three rounds: First, the Karat round, which is AI coding. I hadn't used AI tools in a while so I wasn't used to it, and I only got through the fourth question before time ran out. The questions were: Given a codebase on a bus route simulation: How do…
- Waiting on Team Match After the Exact Same Loop as Last YearInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2025In progress
My virtual onsite (VO) was two weeks ago, and I got the result last week — I'm through, and now I'm waiting on team match. Coding round 1: two questions, both about shopper deliveries. The first one referenced something specific that doesn't translate cleanly from how I originally wrote it, so I can't say more about it here. The second one was a bit more involved, but if you'd already seen the fi…
