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
- 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:…
- IMC Software Engineer interview with a two-question online assessmentIMC · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Oct 2025Rejected
I started with an online assessment containing two questions. The first was harder and reminded me of common LeetCode-style problems, especially arrays and lists before moving toward trees and similar topics. I spent time aligning my practice with that structure, and I remember thinking it was the kind of round where knowing the patterns mattered. I hadn't started the live interviews yet, but the…
- L5 Loop with Five Onsite Rounds and a BQ-Heavy XFNPinterest · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Offer
Let me start with the overall timeline. I interviewed for a level 5 position: one round of phone screen, five rounds of onsite, and two rounds of team matching. The whole process took about a month, and after that I waited 2-3 days for the offer. Here's the general picture of how it went. Overall the interview had some real difficulty to it. The technical part was SQL plus Python. The SQL was on…
- Missed the Case Answer Until Five Minutes of Hints Got Me ThereDoorDash · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Oct 2025
I had this interview not long ago. The SQL was the classic Delivery set — the overall question volume was pretty large, but not every question required you to actually write it out. Some of them asked how you'd turn an existing query into an aggregated version, and the interviewer just had me talk through how I'd change the query instead of writing the code, to save time. The case question was: c…
- Navan Account Executive interview: ranking five accounts in the presentationNavan · Account Executive · HR Screen · Oct 2025
My process took long enough to feel intentional and was split across three main stages. It started with a TA team call that served as a screening step, followed by time with a manager. After that, I did a practice cold-call session and then spoke with a director, which made the interview feel more real rather than purely conversational. The final stage was a presentation that brought together wha…
- Navan Account Executive two-slide client case presentationNavan · Account Executive · HR Screen · Oct 2025
My interview process combined live discussions with a final case exercise. I started with an HR conversation, then met with the team and had additional conversations with managers. People were engaged, and the discussions focused on how I thought through situations. The main challenge was a case round. I had to write a client-style response and then present Navan using two slides. I had to turn t…
- Network Effects, IV Assumptions, and a String-Matching QuestionUber · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Oct 2025
Last month I interviewed for a senior DS role at Uber, so I'm sharing it here. There were two technical rounds, each an hour long. They covered past projects and some case studies. Overall the difficulty wasn't that high, but I kept feeling like we weren't quite on the same wavelength — I probably wasn't giving the answers they were looking for. The first round was with a DS director, who asked a…
- New Case and SQL Questions on the Phone ScreenDoorDash · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Oct 2025
DoorDash Data Scientist phone screen — I got new questions on both the case study and the SQL sections. The case study asked what the impact would be if a delivery is late, and what the possible reasons are. Then, based on the reasons I gave, the interviewer asked what data we would look at, and how to decide which of my stated reasons was the most important one. They also brought up that we've n…
- OA Cut to 50 Minutes for Five QuestionsPoint72 · Data Scientist · Intern · Online Assessment · Oct 2025Rejected
There's not much information about this internship role on the forum, and what's there is outdated, so today I'll share my OA to help others out (and also help myself next year when I'm looking for full-time). The OA got a lot harder this year — it used to be three questions in one hour, but now it's five questions in 50 minutes. The questions were two easy SQL questions, two easy-medium LeetCode…
- OA, Data Challenge, and a Four-Round Power DayCapital One · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Offer
At the end of July, a friend referred me for a Capital One SDA position. Then nothing for about a month. 9/5: The recruiter emailed with the OA, valid for one week. The OA wasn't hard but the time was tight — 70 minutes for 15 questions, 14 multiple choice and 1 SQL. The first seven questions used one CSV, the eighth was the SQL question, and the last seven used four more CSVs where you had to me…
- Offer on Christmas Eve After a Screen and a VOMeta · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025Offer
Got the offer on Christmas Eve — sharing it back with the forum. Timeline: Oct 29 — a university recruiter reached out Nov 19 — screening interview with the interviewer Dec 19 — VO (virtual onsite) with the interviewer Dec 24 — offer I was genuinely swamped at the end of the year, and on top of that I knew nothing about product case questions or SQL, so I ended up dragging this whole process out.…
- One Technical Screen, a Rare Trie/Heap Question, No OfferRoblox · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2025Rejected
A bit unlucky — I ran into an interviewer for this round. At first I was pretty happy, thinking we might have something in common, but then I got the lowest-frequency, hardest question in the database, and I didn't finish it. I ended up failing. I'm not sure whether it was because of the coding, or my resume, or maybe just because I didn't finish the coding — either way, my feedback didn't stack…
- One-and-Done After a C/C++ ScreenArista · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2025Rejected
Arista — one round and done, Vancouver, network systems team. A lot of new openings got posted toward the end of the year — maybe they'd just opened up a new team? The one round was a VO, purely technical. After a five-minute self-introduction they went straight into problems. They used CoderPad, and most of the questions had already shown up on the forum. Questions and discussion They asked abou…
- Onsite Case on a New Chat App, Ending in a Spaghetti-Chart Slide CritiqueMeta · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025
The interviewer had many years of experience and had a friendly, easygoing demeanor. Overall I felt our conversation flowed pretty smoothly, back and forth, and I was able to quickly follow up on a lot of the points he raised and give balanced, two-sided answers. Structurally I stuck to the standard framework (clarify, goal, pros/cons, hypothesis, data points, ...). Maybe because this was L5, the…
- Onsite Dragged to November, Then RejectedOpenAI · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
I applied in June, and they didn't reach out to schedule an interview until September. The phone screen went well, and they quickly set up the onsite (VO), but from there the scheduling turned into a mess — they kept changing the time on me, over and over, and it dragged all the way to November before I finished every round. Two weeks after that, I got the rejection. I won't go into every detail,…
- Onsite Loop with a SQL Live-Coding SlipMeta · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025
AR (Circle): A lot of the questions had already shown up in earlier interview reports, but the interviewer followed up heavily based on how I answered, and I'm honestly not sure whether I actually landed on what she was looking for. AE (Ads in Feed): Most of it was also questions from prior interview reports. The interviewer had a fairly strong accent and her questions weren't always clear, so it…
- Oura Ring Software Engineer interview where the director did not showOura Ring · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Oct 2025
My first round went well. It was an HR conversation, and everything felt smooth and successful. After that, I was scheduled for a technical interview with a director, but the interviewer never showed up. When I followed up, I received no response or explanation for the missed meeting. That was the main problem for me. The interview had been scheduled, I had set aside the time, and then it seemed…
- Oura Software Engineer interview with a missed technical interview and delaysOura · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Oct 2025
A lot of my experience came down to reliability. I started with an HR conversation that went fine, then waited for a technical interview that never happened. After the interviewer didn't show, I followed up but received no real response or explanation. The lack of communication felt disrespectful because I'd set aside time and built expectations around the meeting. Scheduling caused more problems…
- Passed Coding, Cut on the Final Case RoundFlatiron Health · Data Analyst · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
Let me share a DA interview. I signed an NDA so I won't go into detail. From what I've seen on the forum, it feels like nobody has ever gotten an offer from this one... so I didn't have very high hopes going in, and sure enough, that's how it went. First was the Karat screen: they tested SQL, R, and some statistics knowledge. A week later I got the invite for the first round. Round 1: they asked…
- Passed Power Day, Now Waiting on Team MatchingCapital One · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025In progress
This Friday I just finished my Power Day. In the afternoon I got the email saying I didn't need another round, and not long after that the recruiter called that same afternoon to tell me I passed. But since it was Friday, HR usually doesn't get back right away, so they told me they'd first show my results to the HR they're currently working with to see if anyone wants to pick me up, and if not, t…
- Passed the Screen, Then Lost the HeadcountSquare · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Oct 2025In progress
It seems like at this company the hiring manager only looks at your resume after you pass the phone screen. First I talked with the recruiter, and then right there on that call they said they'd schedule the phone screen — a one-hour coding round. The interviewer didn't waste any time either. After about 5 minutes of introducing ourselves, we went straight into the problem. It was written on Coder…
- Passed the Technical Loop, Now in Team MatchingAmazon · Data Scientist · Intern · Technical Screen · Oct 2025In progress
I'm a third-year PhD student in Econometrics and Quantitative Economics, working in Finance, Public Finance, and IO. I applied to Amazon pretty late this year, and since I was extremely busy this semester, I took the last possible deadline at every stage. I finally got the email confirming I'd passed the final technical interview on April 10, and I'm now officially in the team-matching phase. I w…
- Passed Two Case Rounds, Lost at the HM RoundAirwallex · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
The whole loop was 5 rounds, and each round felt like beating a boss to level up. Round 1: SQL + case The SQL part was basically very similar to another post I've seen on the forum — there were some variations on the questions, but the topics were the same. After the SQL, there was a case. They gave me a credit card approval rate time series from Jan 2013 to Jan 2015. There was a dip in Feb 2013,…
- Phone Screen Pairs a Quick Coding Question with a Full A/B Testing Case StudyUber · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Oct 2025
Before the interview, Uber's recruiter sends over some documents to help you prepare — a rough outline of the interview process, what knowledge you should study, and a bunch of links to help you get familiar with Uber's products. The first round is a one-hour phone screen. It starts with talking about the team and about yourself, then a 20-minute easy-difficulty coding question, then a case study…
- Phone Screen Plus a Five-Round VOMeta · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Oct 2025
I interviewed at Meta at the end of last year. Reading other people's interview reports on this forum helped me a lot, so I'm sharing mine to give back. Phone screen: the first part was the usual behavioral questions, and the second part was two LeetCode problems tagged Easy on Meta's list. VO (virtual onsite): 2 rounds of coding, 2 rounds of system design, and 1 round of BQ. The coding and syste…
- Phone Screen to Full Onsite, Rejected on Code QualityLinkedIn · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
Applied in a big October application wave. Interviewing for a junior role. Phone screen: 1 hour, and we spent the first 15 minutes just chatting about my resume. Question 1 was a variant of a problem I only had a coded name for — it started with just () parentheses, then the follow-up expanded it to three different types of brackets. We discussed a stack-based approach versus one using a counter,…
- Phone Screen, Super Day, and EM Round to OfferBloomberg · Software Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2025Offer
I've been reading everyone's interview reports here on the forum, so now that I've got an offer, I wanted to give back with my own. 11.12 — Phone Screen It was a question from a coding-practice site — I don't remember the specifics. Follow-up: if you keep inserting numbers that are bigger than the last one at the end, how do you update it? And what if you insert random numbers regardless of size,…
- Phone Screen, Then a Three-Question Take-home Under a WeekStripe · Data Scientist · Take-home Project · Oct 2025In progress
Still waiting for the final result, but I wanted to share my experience so far. A recruiter from Stripe had reached out to me directly before, so I didn't need to talk to HR again for this role — I went straight into the first round phone screen. A week later I was notified that I'd moved on to the written assessment, with a one-week time limit. I had to submit a presentable result along with the…
- Recruiter Flagged a Red Flag on My SQL MetricMeta · Data Scientist · Onsite · Oct 2025
AE: The euro-chat question — there's a chatbot used for B2C customer service, and the question was how you'd define success, testing, etc. Behavioral: Standard questions. SQL: The shop visibility question. Overall pretty standard questions, and the last part asked me to define my own metric to prove whether new shops are more active. Afterward the recruiter's feedback said I had a red flag on thi…
- Rejected After a Four-Round Virtual OnsiteDoorDash · Analytics Engineer · Onsite · Oct 2025Rejected
I couldn't find a single interview review for the analytics engineering role on the forum, so I'm contributing one. Tech round: one LC medium question, not sure if it's an original/repeat question, pretty simple but exhausting — window sum, find the max sum. I'd seen it before in DoorDash's DE interview reviews. Then four SQL questions — he said getting three done was actually fine. I wrote the f…
