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
- HackerRank OA, Two Coding Problems in 75 MinutesCitadel · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Dec 2025
I did this OA on the HackerRank platform. Two questions, 75 minutes. Q2: You're given n employees' office hours as intervals [startTime[i], endTime[i]]. You need to build a team that includes at least one "core employee" whose working hours overlap with every other member's working hours. Find the maximum number of employees the team can include. For example: Input: startTime = [2, 5, 6, 8], endT…
- HC Canceled the Night Before, Rerouted to a Rushed 15-Minute Coding ScreenxAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Dec 2025
I applied on a whim to a network-related infra role. A coordinator reached out afterward. They do have a recruiter, but I only got one on the line when I asked about salary and the RTO policy. No exaggeration: this company runs 60-hour weeks as the baseline, and 80-100 hours isn't a dream scenario, it's normal. Basically Palo Alto RTO5. Interview process Originally the network team's hiring manag…
- IMC Network Engineer interview: modern C++ and multicast protocol questionsIMC · Network Engineer · Online Assessment · Dec 2025
My process began with an asynchronous online interview and a technical test. The main technical portion started with a deeper discussion focused heavily on C++. It felt intense from the beginning. The interviewers were welcoming enough, but the questions went well beyond surface-level knowledge and dug into modern C++. I went through additional rounds, and the later stages became even more specia…
- Initially Rejected, Reopened by an HR Mistake, Then a Two-Round Virtual OnsiteGoogle · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025In progress
Applied after getting a referral on 2025.10.01. Rejected on 2025.10.14. 2025.10.19 — Got an apology email from HR saying the application was mistakenly closed, and they sent me an OA. 2025.10.21 — Completed the OA. 90 minutes, two questions, the same ones that were already known online — very easy. 2025.10.23 — Got the invite for the first two rounds, scheduled for 10.30. 2025.10.30 — Round 1 tec…
- Interviewer No-Show, Then Ticketmaster System DesignMeta · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025
This was from before the redesign — I heard they've added AI Coding now? First, kudos to the recruiter — she replied promptly every time. For one of the rounds, the interviewer was a no-show. I waited 10 minutes, then called the recruiter and she picked up right away. A bit later she told me the interviewer had something come up unexpectedly, that she'd already complained to that interviewer's ma…
- Invoice Matching Screen, a Bikemap Integration VO, and an SF OfferStripe · Software Engineer · Intern · Onsite · Dec 2025Offer
I got the internship last year. Since my timeline was pretty late, I decided to share it with everyone this year instead. Hope it helps anyone who's in the process right now. 12/1/2025 OA 12/2 phone screen invite 12/8 team screen, the payment invoice question. "Part 1 is matching by invoice id; pay attention to handling the case where there's no match. Part 2 builds on part 1 and adds amount matc…
- K-Means++ Miss and a Trajectory Prediction QuestionWaymo · Machine Learning Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Dec 2025Rejected
First round: We just chatted casually at the start — they asked about the project I'd worked on, how big the network was, how many parameters, how big the data was, that kind of thing. I couldn't really remember most of it. Then we moved on to coding k-means. I had to explain what k-means is first, and after I finished writing it, they asked me to write a better initialization method. They gave m…
- Laid Off, Craft Demo and an AI Round, Then an OfferIntuit · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Dec 2025Offer
This is about my loop for a Staff Software Engineer opening at Intuit, based in Mountain View, CA. I sent out a few online applications, and a recruiter then contacted me. Background I'm based in the US and did my master's here, after arriving in 2013. Meta let me go in September 2025. Before that I put in 3.5 years at AWS, where I mostly did backend work for AWS services. After that came 6 years…
- Manager Merged Two Rounds Into OneHome Depot · Business Analyst · Onsite · Dec 2025Rejected
In late October I got an interview for an HD SBA role through a friend's referral, so let me share how it went (spoiler: I got rejected). Since I hadn't interviewed in a long time, but my friend's referral was really strong, the process moved super fast — a total of 10 days to get through 2 rounds of interviews (actually 3 rounds, since the hiring manager decided to merge round 2 and round 3). Ti…
- Missed the 3-for-3 SQL/Python Bar in a 25+25 ScreenMeta · Data Engineer · Technical Screen · Dec 2025Rejected
I've actually been pretty happy at my current job and wasn't planning to switch. A Meta recruiter reached out to me a few times, so I figured I'd interview just to see how it would go. Technical round (25 minutes of SQL + 25 minutes of Python) I hadn't grinded LeetCode in a long time. The questions weren't too hard, but they were tricky. The interviewer spoke excellent English and gave me a lot o…
- My Best Behavioral Round YetGoogle · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025
Last week's BQ (behavioral questions) interview report — I posted the coding round separately on the forum too. The BQ round was scheduled separately. It was originally supposed to be combined with another round, but got rescheduled at the last minute, so there ended up being a week's gap between them. They didn't ask about my resume. Self-introduction, then the first question came smoothly: what…
- My Strategy for Passing the Hiring Assessment Personality TestGoogle · Data Scientist · Online Assessment · Dec 2025
As the first stage of the interview process, this one's pretty simple — but it would be a shame to get filtered out here. I looked through everything I could find online and combined it with my own experience to put together what I think is the most complete summary out there, to save everyone some time. Just read through this whole post and you should sail through it. What's the Google Hiring As…
- Navan Software Engineer interview with a 20-minute AI roundNavan · Software Engineer · Other · Dec 2025
My first interaction used AI and felt jarringly different from a normal recruiter screen. The timer was set to 20 minutes, and it cut me off exactly at the limit even though I hadn't finished my answer. I remember thinking the pacing punished me more than it tested my actual understanding. I also wished there had been a typical early conversation with a recruiter to provide some context and make…
- OA Full Marks, Then Rejected After the Virtual Onsite Coding RoundsCoinbase · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025Rejected
OA was a geography question. I solved all 4 questions and got a perfect score. VO BQ — not like a normal BQ, more like a conversation. The interviewer dove deep into how I'd improve my projects. I don't know why, but after about 20 minutes he seemed to lose interest. He asked if I had any questions for him. After I asked, he went back to asking me about projects where I used a lot of different ap…
- OA, Two Virtual Rounds, Onsite in NYC, Rejected in JanuaryGoogle · Software Engineer · New Grad · Onsite · Dec 2025Rejected
This is a much-delayed writeup. I applied in early November 2025, got the OA two days later, and finished it that same night — they told me I passed right away and scheduled R1. A week later they gave me the specific R1 time. Coding and BQ were both on the same day. R1 tech was basically the exact LeetCode 295 (Find Median from Data Stream, two heaps). After I finished, we did a dry run plus comp…
- OA: Token-Hopping Coin Board and Shared-Digit GroupingGoogle · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Dec 2025
Two questions, 90 minutes, not hard. First question: given a string representing the board of a single-player game laid out horizontally, containing three possible values: '.', 'T', 'C'. '.' means the position is empty, 'C' means there's a coin at that position, and 'T' means the player's token is at that position. The board length is at most 100. The player has multiple tokens, and the movement…
- Online Assessment Is All Behavioral Scenarios and a Recorded PresentationLumen · Data Analyst · Intern · Online Assessment · Dec 2025
The questions weren't hard. I applied for the analyst position — even though it lists requirements like SQL, it doesn't really seem like a technical role, so it's basically all testing behavior. As soon as you apply you get an OA. It also seems like this one can be a remote internship, which is a nice touch. The general question types were: given an article, then multiple choice questions on it;…
- Onsite Loop for the Grand Challenge Health-AI IncubatorAmazon · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025
Grand Challenge is Amazon's internal incubator, similar to Google X — in fact it was founded in 2014 by Babak Parviz, the former Director of Google X. Right now it's mainly focused on applying AI to healthcare, and the project is highly confidential outside the team. That said, the interviewers and the hiring manager were warm and friendly, and the overall experience was positive. The interview h…
- Onsite System Design on a Metrics Monitoring System, PassedRippling · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025Offer
Unlike what I've seen in other write-ups on the forums, I don't know if they changed the question or if there are now two system design question pools for the onsite (Google News / a metrics monitoring system) — I got the monitoring system one. The gist was: collect some user behavior data, like installs / user clicks / etc, and it needed both a real-time view and collection of raw events for a b…
- Onsite System Design on Orderbooks, Rejected Before the Coding RoundJane Street · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025Rejected
Real-time report from the London office. The OA and first-round phone interview are already covered elsewhere on the forum, so this is just filling in the details on R2 and the onsite. R2: a coding interview (sort trade) — this one's also up on Glassdoor. Compared to a typical algorithm question, the setup was closer to "how would you implement this feature in a trading system," testing your logi…
- Oura Systems Engineer interview with a one-day offer windowOura · Systems Engineer · Dec 2025Offer
I was contacted by a talent scout, and we agreed on a one-hour online interview. A couple of days later, I had a team interview that also lasted about an hour, followed by a final conversation with a team leader. Everyone I spoke with was encouraging and polite. The atmosphere felt supportive rather than intimidating. The process moved surprisingly fast. Within about a week, I was offered the job…
- Pair Programming a Mars Rover with Claude CodeShopify · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Dec 2025
The interviewer had a heavy French accent, so I had to turn on the Google Meet transcript. After introductions, the interviewer handed me a GitHub repo that was completely empty. The requirement was given verbally: build an app to control a Mars rover — the rover starts at (0, 0) facing north; it supports commands to turn left/right and move; and it should report direction and position after ever…
- Passed Every Round, Rejected With Zero FeedbackVoleon · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025Rejected
This was the company I spent the most time preparing for, and it was also the one that went the smoothest. The recruiter kept telling me things looked fine, and in the end I solved every single technical question — and they still rejected me. Feels like a complete waste of time. I went through the entire process, and when the rejection came they didn't give even a bit of high-level feedback. Zero…
- Passed Every Round, Then the Role Was FilledAirbnb · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Dec 2025Rejected
Background: US bachelor's degree, 4.5 years of experience. Timeline Mid-October: mass-applied on LinkedIn to Airbnb Beijing (the "air mattress" company) — got a recruiter email the same day. A week later: 15-minute HR Screen introducing the role. Late October: 45-minute Tech Screen. Early November: VO1 (Coding 1) and VO2 (Coding 2), 45 minutes each. > Suggest a split stay where you stay at 2 diff…
- Passed the Tech Screen Despite an Unfinished Graph QuestionAmazon · Applied Scientist · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Dec 2025In progress
An Amazon recruiter found me on a job site and had me apply for a senior applied scientist role. The recruiter met with me first and walked me through the general shape of the tech screen — ML breadth plus coding. ML Breadth. The interviewer was pretty nice. This part asked a lot of fundamental questions, like: 1) What is a p-value? 2) What is overfitting and underfitting, and how do you address…
- PhD ML Intern OA, Coding, ML Round and Team MatchUber · Software Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Dec 2025
Sharing my process from December last year (2025) to January this year. Background: PhD, applied for the SDE PhD ML Intern role. Timeline: December: OA December: one coding interview round January: one ML interview round After that we talked about team match OA: I don't remember the exact problems, but the difficulty was low. They were basically all easy. Coding: The classic meeting rooms problem…
- Phone Screen ML Deep-Dive Then a Five-Round OnsiteAmazon · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025
Phone Screen Part one was ML knowledge. The interviewer basically didn't ask about basic definitions — the whole thing revolved around digging into my project. From model selection to training details to evaluation, every answer just led to another follow-up. Typical questions included: how did you do evaluation for your model? Which metrics did you use? Why did you choose them? What are the math…
- Phone Screen on a High-Performance String ClassNVIDIA · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Dec 2025
NV phone screen I was asked to implement a high-performance class to handle large strings, with functions like cmp, cat, substr, and so on. I created a simple class that uses a char array to store short strings. First I was asked to write the constructor: Q: For strncpy(buf, s, len), characters get copied one at a time — how can this be sped up? A: Use memcpy. Q: Is that the same as strncpy? A: ?…
- Plaid Software Engineer interview: CodeSignal OA and two technical roundsPlaid · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Dec 2025Offer
My process started with an OA on CodeSignal, which was straightforward enough to complete. After that, I had a technical interview and a final round with a very specific rhythm: two technical interviews back to back, followed by one behavioral segment. The whole experience felt positive. The interviewers were genuinely friendly and engaged with my answers. They seemed interested in understanding…
- Rejected After One Technical Screen on a Huffman-Style Encoding ProblemTwo Sigma · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Dec 2025Rejected
11.9 – applied 11.12 – OA 11.24 – got the invite for the next round 12.1 – interview 12.3 – rejection letter The interviewer's English was really good, and he was patient and kept trying to guide me, but at the time I just couldn't understand why we needed to build a tree to encode things. It wasn't until later that it clicked — it's to get a unique binary representation, so that the most frequen…
