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
- Aurora Innovation Software Engineer interview: DSA round and two coding onsite roundsAurora Innovation · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2025
I went through an intensive process that began with a DSA round and continued with several onsite interviews. I remember the onsite as multiple rounds with different evaluators, including two coding rounds and an HR discussion. The interviews weren’t easy. I prepared from the job description because the expectations were clearly tied to the actual responsibilities. The coding rounds and HR conver…
- Brex Software Engineer interview: recruiter call under 15 minutesBrex · Software Engineer · Oct 2025Rejected
I applied and quickly received an invitation for a screening call, so the timeline moved fast. The process ended with a rejection shortly afterward, although the screening itself was fairly standard. The recruiter call lasted under 15 minutes. We went through the usual prompts: telling me about myself, describing a project or complex feature I had worked on, and explaining how I approached it. Th…
- Built a Streamlit App Instead of LeetCode, Rejected After OnsiteSnowflake · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
Got in through a referral. Hiring Manager interview — the whole thing was just chatting about my project, it went pretty well, and I moved forward to the next round. Technical round — I'd read a report on the forum saying they usually ask 3sum and some fairly hard SQL, but it turned out to be building a small data application with Streamlit instead. It really did require partition SQL, plus being…
- Case Questions on Campaign Design and MMX ModelsCVS Health · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Oct 2025In progress
Today I made it through the second round (not counting HR), talking with a senior data science manager. They mainly asked a few case-style questions: If you were sending an email campaign to get people to go get a flu shot, how would you design the campaign? Mainly wanted me to share my thinking and the factors I'd consider. If you wanted to launch a TV channel campaign, how would you design it?…
- Case Study, SQL, and a Live Python EDA RoundCoinbase · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025
Part 1: case study plus SQL and Python. The case: an e-commerce company wants to send personalized emails to boost conversion rate. How do you measure success? It was basically the standard A/B test process — define the metrics, figure out how to calculate the sample size, all of that. There was a follow-up at the end: suppose we ran the experiment and saw conversion rate go up 20%, we thought it…
- Chime Software Engineer interview: basic SQL without window functionsChime · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Oct 2025
I interviewed for a data engineering-oriented SDE role where the questions were unusually basic. They focused on my past work and simpler algorithm and SQL knowledge. The recruiter screen covered my background and how it matched the role. The technical portion covered SQL and algorithms. The SQL questions were very basic and explicitly did not include window functions. The algorithm problems lean…
- Cold-Called Into the DSR Track, All Strong HireGoogle · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025Offer
I'd read a small handful of interview reports, and even those helped a lot. A bit of background first: I'm at a big company, I've been coasting for a few years, and it started to feel like I was wasting my time, so at the start of this year I decided to look for a new job. It wasn't smooth — I got rejected by hiring managers, rejected on coding or SQL, rejected at onsite, rejected at the final ro…
- Confluent Solutions Engineer interview: cloud and data management focusConfluent · Solutions Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2025Rejected
My biggest issue started before the technical work. The role requirements felt misrepresented. I spent time with the recruiter and hiring manager discussing my background in detail, and they explicitly told me that specialized knowledge of their products or data streaming wasn't required. When the one-hour technical interview came, the focus didn't match what I had been led to expect. The convers…
- Data Challenge, Power Day, Offer in 3 DaysCapital One · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Offer
Reading interview reports here helped me a lot, so I'm giving back with my own timeline and report. Got an HR call at the end of February, and scheduled an HM call for a week later. The hiring manager was great — she mostly shared her own experience and what the team does, then went through my resume in detail. After the HM call in early March, I got a Data Challenge. Very classic problem, overal…
- Eleven Rounds, Two and a Half Months, and a Hiring Manager SwapNetflix · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
I just got an early update from the recruiter. The email said they're still gathering information, but "not a perfect fit, unfortunately." I interviewed 11 times total, met with 10 different people, and the whole process was absurd — it dragged on for two and a half months. Referral HR screening: Netflix culture, my background, why I'm job hunting First technical round: pure SQL, had to actually…
- First-Ever Interview, Four-Round Onsite, No OfferTwitch · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
Full interview timeline: 9/28 — Mass-applied. 11/3 — Received an OA invite and an HR reach-out. 11/14 — HR phone screen, asked about my basic background and some BQ. 11/24 — Tech round. They gave a rock-paper-scissors game design question with two follow-ups — you got extra credit for handling win streaks and for breaking ties. Someone on this forum had shared this one before. Then some BQ, diggi…
- First-Round Onsite With Two Invoice-Matching ProblemsStripe · New Grad · Onsite · Oct 2025In progress
We started with mutual self-introductions — no deep dive into past projects. Then came two coding problems based on one scenario; the problem statements and the amount of code weren't small. At the end I got to ask the interviewer some questions. Q1: Given an invoice ID embedded in a payment memo, match it against the invoice list and output the result. My approach: parse the payment string to pu…
- Five Rounds Split Across Two DaysAmazon · Data Scientist · New Grad · Onsite · Oct 2025
Amazon DS new grad interview experience. Five rounds total — the first round was a screening, and the other four were split across two days, two rounds each day. Of the five rounds, one was pure behavioral (BQ). The interviewer's title was Spec. Principal Sales Rep, and they asked "tell me about a time when you..." style questions the whole way through. Since the interviewer was a non-tech audien…
- Five Rounds, Rejected After the HM RoundAirwallex · Staff Data Scientist · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
The whole loop was five rounds, and every round felt like leveling up to fight a bigger boss. Round 1: SQL + case The SQL was basically similar to a post I'd seen before — there were some variations in the questions, but the type of question was the same. After the SQL there was a case. The case gives you a credit card approval rate time series from Jan 2013 to Jan 2015. There's a dip in Feb 2013…
- Five-Round Onsite Loop Ends in RejectionPinterest · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
Fresh rejection writeup — I just did a virtual onsite for a Staff Data Scientist role at Pinterest. (1) Coding: SQL joining three tables to calculate, for each country, the category with the most impressions, and to calculate the heavy user rate (heavy user defined as active at least 4 days in the past week, with at least 3 features used on one of those days). There was also a simple Python quest…
- Five-Round Onsite Panel, Then a Lowball Offer Fell ThroughExpedia · Data Scientist III · Onsite · Oct 2025Withdrew
Switching jobs this year wasn't easy either — all told I went through something like 7 rounds of interviews, and in the end the money didn't work out and the offer fell through, which was a shame. This has some things in common with a post I made before. I noticed there aren't really any Expedia interview experience posts here related to Data Science, so a while back I interviewed for an Expedia…
- 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…
- Four Onsite Rounds, One AR Question Asked TwiceMeta · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025
Behavior round: challenging project, diversity, differences in working style, learning. The interviewer was really nice and easy to talk to. AR (Ad Recommendation) round: talking with the interviewer felt really comfortable, and they were very good at controlling the pace of the interview. SQL round: Active Ad Revenue based on different creation source. The question changed a little from what I w…
- Four Onsite Rounds, Treated as PracticeSnapchat · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025
Overall the interview went fairly smoothly. Four rounds total. The first round on stats was a bit shaky — if I were going to fail, that's where it'd happen. But it doesn't really matter much, I'd already accepted an offer from a good company elsewhere, so this one was purely for the experience. Round 1 - Stats: They asked a few BQ questions, had me do a self-introduction, then gave an ML case — h…
- Four Rounds and a Hiring Freeze at the Finish LineFreddie Mac · Onsite · Oct 2025
Giving back to the forum with a (relatively) fresh interview report for what feels like a cushy, stable place to ride out a career — Freddie Mac. The process dragged out for a while, four rounds total (not counting the HR call, otherwise it's five)... In the end, because Trump took office and FHFA got completely reshuffled, the whole thing got swept off the table and I got the pleasure of a hirin…
- Four Rounds, a Lawyer's Red Flag, and a Runner-Up FinishCVS Health · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
On 2/5 I got an invite from the recruiter for a team video interview, and we picked 2/7 for the time. We talked about my resume and work history. She asked some basic questions about my status. She kept saying they were hiring urgently, so we scheduled the tech interview for 2/12, and along the way she went over the topics and content for it. That's when I learned it would be a tech interview foc…
- Four Rounds, Lost Out to a Candidate with More Product ExperienceDisney · Senior Data Analyst, Product · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
There aren't many Disney/Hulu-related posts on this forum. A few months ago I interviewed for a Senior Data Analyst, Product role. I applied in early July this year. Their hiring process is four rounds. The recruiter scheduled my HR screen in the second week after I applied. It was mainly: 1) introduce myself, 2) why I wanted to switch jobs, 3) they walked through the interview process. Overall i…
- Four Technical Rounds, One Interviewer Showed Up Late and Never ApologizedGoogle · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025
Overall the interview questions were pretty hard, but the interviewers were mostly friendly and did a good job guiding you along (except for one round). Google's interviews feel hard to prepare for — unlike Meta, which has a ton of interview writeups floating around. I think it really comes down to what you've built up over time. Technical: Statistics Question 1: Assume we have a sample with 100…
- Four Weeks of Email Chaos, Then the Position Was FilledMicrosoft · Data Scientist · Other · Oct 2025Rejected
Sharing a bizarre experience today: the Microsoft interviewer couldn't receive Gmail emails. I got notified four weeks ago for a coding screen round. I needed to provide 5 interview windows, so I replied, and then... nothing. I waited three days, followed up, and the interviewer said she never received my last email — checked her spam folder too, nothing there. But this one she got. So I gave new…
- Gamified Assessment and a Meta-Style Product Sense Case, No OfferRoblox · Data Scientist · Intern · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
This application season I applied for Roblox's PhD DS Summer Intern position. I didn't end up passing, but I felt the team's overall background was pretty solid, and the assessment was a bit different from the usual, so I wanted to share it here. Timeline: 11/23/2024 — applied online, got the assessment the same day 12/19/2024 — submitted the assessment 02/12/2025 — HR reached out 02/27/2025 — vi…
- Ghosted After a Marketing-Email Design QuestionTencent · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Oct 2025No response
The interview was conducted in Chinese. My interviewer was a staff data scientist on Tencent's North America team. Their team works on games — they even asked me what games I've played. The team covers both product DS work and modeling DS work. They started by asking about the projects on my resume, then followed up with a few more questions about them. After that, they asked me this question: Sa…
- Gusto Software Engineer interview with timed LeetCode medium assessmentGusto · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Oct 2025
The process felt straightforward and predictable. After applying, I completed an online assessment, followed by a technical interview focused on a LeetCode medium problem. The process then moved toward an offer decision. The online assessment was the difficult part. One question was relatively easy, but after that I essentially had to produce a perfect coding solution without debugging, all withi…
- HackerRank OA Then a Decision-Tree Phone ScreenPoint72 · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Oct 2025
OA 60 minutes, 4 questions on HackerRank. Same as most experience reports here, except the third question was SQL — for the others you could pick Python or R. But I'd guess most people here just use Python. Date transformation Arbitrary shopping (screenshot attached) SQL question (pretty easy) Given the centers and radii of two circles, write a function to determine their positional relationship…
- HackerRank OA With a Circle-Geometry Question, Then a Coin-Flip Expectation PuzzlePoint72 · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Oct 2025
OA 60-minute HackerRank test, 4 questions. Same format as most experience posts here — except question 3 was SQL, and for the other questions you could choose Python or R. But I'm pretty sure most people here just use Python. Date transformation Arbitrary shopping (there was an image attached) SQL question (pretty easy) Given the center and radius of two circles, write a function to determine the…
- HM Chat, HR Screen, Then a Key-Value Store Round Where AI Wrote My CryptoCloudflare · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2025No response
The HM round was basically both sides chatting about background. The HM gave a lot of intro about the team — the team mainly uses Go. HR screen, about two weeks later. They walked me through the interview process and collected some info about my relevant experience, but it was mostly them introducing the interview and what the team does. Scheduled for about a week after that. I could use search,…
