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
- One Tech Screen, a Two-Round Virtual Onsite, and an Offer a Week LaterUpstart · Data Scientist · Onsite · Nov 2025Offer
Overall the experience was quite good — the HR person and the several interviewers I dealt with were all very supportive, and none of them looked down on international candidates. There was no HR screen; I went straight into the first technical round. The interviewer didn't ask about my resume at all at first — just had me do a quick self-introduction and then went straight into questions. The qu…
- Pair Programming, Then a Rough Onsite DayShopify · Data Scientist · Onsite · Nov 2025In progress
There aren't many full write-ups here that make it all the way to the onsite round, so I wanted to contribute one. Overall timeline: Day 1: HR reached out to schedule the interview — sent a link to book a time for a "life story" chat, and along with it an IQ test and a personality test to complete before the chat. Day 4: Life story interview. The key points are already covered in other posts — th…
- Phone Screen, Four Onsite Rounds, and a Founder Who Muted HimselfRetell AI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Nov 2025
Their HR seems to be outsourced to some third party — they were actually pretty enthusiastic though. Phone screen: coding. Onsite: four rounds. Round 1 was practical coding, I don't even remember what exactly it was anymore. They allowed using AI for code gen. Round 2 was also practical coding, the problem was pretty long and I don't remember the details either. All I remember is that you had to…
- Python, SQL, and Rejection at the Hiring Manager RoundRoblox · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Nov 2025Rejected
I applied online among lots of other applications, and HR reached out afterward. The overall process was HR screen → technical → HM. I failed at the HM round and didn't make it to the onsite. The HR phone screen was fairly standard, mainly asking: Self-introduction. Why are you leaving? Why Roblox? What are you looking for in your next role? The technical interview lasted an hour and mainly cover…
- Recruiter Ghosted Me Twice During SchedulingOracle · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Nov 2025Rejected
I got referred to a role on the OCI observability org. About a week and a half later I got an HR call invite. The recruiter was extremely unprofessional — he ghosted me twice total, and I'll complain about it in chronological order below. The first time the recruiter went dark was around scheduling the phone screen in late October. The system-generated interview availability window was a bit shor…
- Recycled SQL Questions and a Biker-Project Case RoundDoorDash · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Nov 2025
HR screen -> Round 1 30-min SQL round: 4 old/frequently-asked questions, with my basic approach: Q1. Percentage of high frequency customers (order>30) each month. Get cus_id, month, order_count. Group by month, cus; count(distinct case when oc> then cus end)/count(distinct cus) Q2. Customers who ordered the most, excluding high-frequency customers, each month (follow-up: the most frequent custome…
- Rejected After Two Technical Rounds, But the Nicest Interview YetApple · Data Engineer · Technical Screen · Nov 2025Rejected
Apple Maps – Metrics Engineering team I'd never heard of this role before either. I looked into it a lot, and it feels kind of like a Data Engineer (Analytics-leaning) role — designing data pipelines for various Apple Maps features and building metrics to measure the app's performance. A recruiter reached out to me, and I went into the interview just to give it a try. I ended up failing, but this…
- Rejected Everywhere Else Before Landing an All-Strong-Hire DSR OfferGoogle · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Onsite · Nov 2025Offer
I've read some experience posts on the forum before, and this is my way of giving back — my first post, sharing some of my own experience here. Some background first: I'm at a big company, I've been coasting for several years, and I felt like I was wasting away, so I planned to switch jobs earlier this year. It didn't go well though — I got rejected at the hiring manager round, then coding/SQL ro…
- Resume Grilling Turns Into a Surprise 30-Minute Hotel Booking System DesignTikTok · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Nov 2025
It started with a self-introduction, then 20 minutes of the interviewer grilling my resume — almost no rote trivia questions, mostly project-related questions, and the interviewer asked at a very high level. Then, very abruptly, I was told I had to spend the remaining thirty minutes finishing a system design question, any diagramming tool I wanted, and I had to share my screen. The functional req…
- Right-Side View BFS, Then a Pure Behavioral RoundGoogle · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Nov 2025
R1: Technical interview. The interviewer was a senior frontend engineer. We did a bit of small talk up front, then went straight to the coding link. Q1: Given a binary tree, output all the nodes visible from the right side. I used BFS — each round, take all the nodes at the current level, output the last one, then push all the nodes of the next level into the queue. Q2: Given two arrays arr1 and…
- Rokt Software Engineer interview: aptitude screen, LeetCode, and onsite roundsRokt · Software Engineer · Onsite · Nov 2025
I went through an assessment-heavy funnel that felt disconnected from actual software work. After applying, I completed a cognitive aptitude and personality-style screen, followed by a one-way video interview where I recorded responses to behavioral prompts. By then, the process already felt automated and generic. The later stages followed a more traditional technical path, but the pacing and com…
- Rokt Software Engineer process with a room exercise, one-way video, and take-homeRokt · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Nov 2025
My first step was a cognitive and personality-style evaluation. After that, I quickly reached rounds that felt more like assessments than engineering interviews. One memorable part was a room-based exercise that had nothing to do with building software. It was meant to see how I performed under pressure during an activity unrelated to day-to-day development. The process also included a one-way vi…
- Shield AI Software Engineer interview: third-round coding sessionShield AI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Nov 2025
I made it to the third round, a coding interview, and things had been going well until then. The recruiter and hiring manager seemed genuinely interested and were open about the role. The direction felt clear early on, and their communication seemed transparent. The coding interview went off track. The interviewer arrived 25 minutes late, and the questions didn't seem well planned. When I asked f…
- Smartsheet Software Engineer interview: Roman-to-integer coding and outage-detector designSmartsheet · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Other · Nov 2025Offer
After the recruiter reached out through LinkedIn, the timeline was straightforward. I was scheduled for a coding round and a design round as part of the Senior Software Engineer process, and I completed them back-to-back. The recruiter arranged the calls and kept the scheduling moving. For coding, I solved a Roman-to-integer style problem. The design question was an outage detector modeled after…
- Software Engineer interview at Drw Holdings: Python take-home and unanswered emailsDrw Holdings · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Nov 2025Rejected
I ran into communication gaps and long periods of silence during the take-home and scheduling steps. That made the experience frustrating, even though I completed everything. I first had a friendly HR conversation and then received a small Python coding or homework task. I submitted it and was expected to have a front-facing technical interview, but I never heard back. In another path, I agreed t…
- SQL Round Ran Out of Time, Then a Bike Case StudyDoorDash · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Nov 2025
This was the first interview of this hiring round for me, and I wasn't prepared — I underestimated how much time management the SQL portion would take, and I didn't finish it before time was cut off. The SQL question was a real, previously-reported one. It asked for: Users who spent more than $100 in a month The same as above but excluding the person with the highest spend each month Month-over-m…
- Stumped by a 'Fibonacci Tree' Path Question in the Technical ScreenDatabricks · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Nov 2025Rejected
I'd ground the recent high-frequency questions down to nothing, and then they hit me with an old, unprepared-for question: find path within Fibonacci tree. The problem doesn't give you a node structure, and you're not even allowed to write your own. The input is order: int, start: int, end: int. Find the shortest path from start to end. Right away I explained a brute force approach, and the inter…
- The Interviewer Kept Calling It "Terrific," Then Came the RejectionStripe · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Nov 2025Rejected
I got the rejection letter within two days! They said something like: being more precise about this role, which means they sometimes have to reject candidates who are very impressive. I compared emails with a friend and it turns out this line is an old script Stripe likes to reuse. Not sure, but I have a feeling they ultimately wanted someone with a finance background that fits fintech better. I…
- Three Back-to-Back Rounds, Offer a Month LaterMicrosoft · Data Scientist · New Grad · Onsite · Nov 2025Offer
Timeline 10/13: HackerRank OA — one LeetCode problem, one data-processing problem 11/03: 3 rounds, back-to-back interviews 12/03: Offer Background: Statistics PhD, resume was 80% large-language-model-related research, no conference publications at the time of interviewing (a few projects were finished and being submitted), no industry experience. Round 1: the interviewer gave me 30 min of behavio…
- Three Rounds of Online AssessmentsMaven Securities · Data Scientist · Online Assessment · Nov 2025
The first round OA was 30 minutes with 18 probability questions. The time wasn't tight — most of them were easy-to-medium difficulty questions from the green book, or similar ones. I still remember the last question: from the 30 numbers 1 to 30, you draw three numbers without replacement — what's the probability that the three numbers form an arithmetic sequence? I think I'd seen a similar questi…
- Three-Day Onsite Full of Behavioral Questions, Then GhostedApple · Software Engineer · Onsite · Nov 2025No response
I got contacted by HR on LinkedIn — the team is based in Austin. The phone screen was with the hiring manager. Two questions, neither of which needed to actually run — you just had to talk through your approach. Not straight off LeetCode, but roughly LeetCode easy level. I interviewed after only a few days of grinding problems, and I still passed, so don't stress about it too much. The onsite was…
- Tic-Tac-Toe Coding Round and a Lease Renewal Take-homeEliseAI · Data Scientist · Take-home Project · Nov 2025
I applied online and a recruiter reached out. The first round was a 30-minute chat with a team member. The second round was coding, a tic-tac-toe variant. I'd suggest looking at all three of these: 348 - Design Tic-Tac-Toe 794 - Valid Tic-Tac-Toe State 1275 - Find Winner on a Tic Tac Toe Game The third round was a take-home: you get 24 hours to do it, and then there is a 30-minute presentation. T…
- Two Back-to-Back Phone Screens, Rejected for Pipeline FitChime · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Nov 2025Rejected
A recruiter reached out. I looked up the company online and felt the culture seemed okay, so I went ahead and interviewed. The recruiter call was just casual chatting, and we quickly landed on an interview time. I hadn't grinded LeetCode in a long time so I was a little worried, so I scheduled the phone screen slot for two weeks out and started grinding through interview experience posts. In the…
- Two Brutal Phone Rounds on Airport Supply and DemandUber · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Nov 2025
Overall impression: this one was really hard. First there was a 15-minute recruiter call — a quick chat about my current job, why I was looking, and visa/status questions. They said the interview process would be laid out in a follow-up email. The phone interview was two rounds total, one hour each. Round 1: coding (SQL and Python), plus a case study. The SQL question was built around drivers and…
- Two OAs and a 90-Minute Database Design Coding TestCoinbase · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Nov 2025
There were two OAs total. One was a personality test and an aptitude test. The personality test had over a hundred questions, and some of them repeat — be careful not to contradict yourself between them. The aptitude test was very tight on time: figure relations, quantitative relations, vocabulary fill-in-the-blank, that kind of thing. It's hard to finish in time, so just guess when you have to.…
- 11 Rounds, 10 People, and a Hiring Manager Swapped Mid-LoopNetflix · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
I just got an early update from the recruiter. The email said they're still gathering information, but unfortunately it's "not a perfect fit." I did 11 rounds in total and met 10 people. The whole process was absolutely ridiculous, spanning a full two and a half months. Referral HR screening: Netflix culture, personal background, why I'm job hunting First technical round: pure SQL, had to actuall…
- 3 of 4 Onsite Rounds Done, Last Round Pushed Two WeeksMeta · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025In progress
I finished 3 out of 4 rounds of my virtual onsite yesterday, so while it's still fresh in my memory, let me share the experience. The reason I only finished 3/4 is that right after the third round, the recruiter told me the final Technical session needed to be rescheduled — it ended up getting pushed two weeks out. Such a slow death (I originally wanted to get through the whole thing in one day,…
- 90 Minutes Covering System Design, RL, and a Graph-Cycle Coding QuestionAmazon · Machine Learning Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2025
Basically felt like going into battle with my head already wrapped in bandages, wounded before I even started. It was originally scheduled for one hour, but it ended up running an hour and a half. The coverage was extremely comprehensive: 1) First, a self-introduction covering the projects I'd done, but with a bit of a science-breadth angle mixed in — this took 3-5 minutes. 2) Right after that ca…
- A 14-Question Excel and SQL Online AssessmentCapital One · Data Scientist · Online Assessment · Oct 2025
The exam had 14 quiz questions total, with one big SQL question in the middle. The content was almost exactly like what people have shared here in past years — really grateful for those write-ups, they were super helpful for prep! Questions 1-7: you download a CSV file. The one I got was about an online ad platform — A/B testing, watch time, dates, that kind of thing. The HR email had actually me…
- A 3-Problem Codility OA With a 5-Part Robot Pathfinding PuzzleDRW · Software Engineer · Intern · Online Assessment · Oct 2025In progress
I applied to DRW Singapore for the SWE C++ Internship. The first round was a Codility OA, 150 minutes for 3 problems. There are n people, each with a distinct ability value in [1, n]. You're given a[i], the ability value of the i-th person. n is guaranteed to be a power of 2, with n
