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
- Full Loop in a Week, Rejected Over a Level MismatchDoorDash · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Jul 2025Rejected
A recruiter reached out on LinkedIn saying my background was a good fit, and after an HR call I moved into the interview process. The Phone Screen was an Easy coding question with a follow-up — string matching. After passing the Phone Screen, I had a 30-minute informal chat with the Hiring Manager, mostly about the team's business and my own work experience. After that, HR reached out to schedule…
- Garmin Software Engineer interview with two-hour theory-heavy onsiteGarmin · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2025Rejected
I interviewed for a mid-level .NET and Software Engineer type role at Garmin, and I felt the process didn't match my seniority level or the time I put into it. The in-person technical interview lasted two hours and focused heavily on theory rather than problem solving. I missed a few questions but otherwise did okay. Afterward, I was told they really wanted someone senior for a mid-level position…
- HM Screen, OA, and a GCP-Focused Final RoundSalesforce · Software Engineer II · Onsite · Jul 2025
A recruiter reached out in April and scheduled a video call to get a sense of my situation, and mentioned there would be a lot of openings coming up after that. In June I noticed a large number of Salesforce job postings, but the recruiter seemed to have forgotten about me, so I emailed to nudge them. Interviewing for SDE 2. First round: Hiring manager screening. Mainly asked about my background,…
- HR Screen, Technical Interview, 48-Hour Take-home Case Study, and Behavioral FitWells Fargo · Credit Risk Modeler · Other · Jul 2025
Position: Credit Risk Modeler (Associate Level) Location: Charlotte, NC (Hybrid) Rounds: HR Screening → Technical Interview → Case Study → Behavioral Fit Interview Process Recap ① HR Phone Screen (30min) Brief self-introduction, "Why Wells Fargo?" Confirmed my understanding of Credit Risk Modeling (PD/LGD/EAD basics). Asked one behavioral question: "Describe a time you worked with incomplete data…
- IMC Software Engineer home assignment and code reviewIMC · Software Engineer · Take-home Project · Jul 2025Rejected
I started with a home assignment that was split into two parts. They estimated about six hours of work and gave me three days to complete it, so it felt manageable at first. The first part involved implementing something straightforward, along with smaller requirements such as writing a README and adding unit tests. Some of the solution requirements felt subjective and depended on the approach, w…
- Interviewer's Test Cases Contradicted Each OtherGoogle · Site Reliability Engineer · Technical Screen · Jul 2025In progress
I had a phone interview today for a Google SRE position — a DSA round. It was a question I'd already done before (an original LeetCode problem), but I'm guessing the interviewer is still going to fail me. Everyone should learn this technique for failing candidates: give a ton of test cases — looked like 8 of them. At first, since it was the original problem, I started explaining to him how to sol…
- Merging Overlapping Vehicle-Run Intervals in SQL and PythonNuro · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Jul 2025
Dataset description The dataset had several fields: set id, run id, start time, end time, and set number. The set ids ran from 1 to 6 and represented different recorded segments from autonomous-vehicle sessions. For example, set 1 was about 30 seconds long, set 2 was 23 seconds, set 3 was 19 seconds, and so on. The run id identified the trip. It used a time-string format such as 20250101_122334,…
- Nine or Ten Rounds in One Chicago OnsiteS S Sunrise · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2025
You have to go to Chicago in person — I'm sick of it. The whole trip was a terrible experience. The interview process was long and painful, and after each round they'd ghost you for a month. But then when HR finally reached back out a month later, you had to give them a firm availability within a single day. The company's culture and technical bar didn't impress me either. They seem to have very…
- No-Camera OA, Passed 3 of 4 on a Banking System Design ProblemKlaviyo · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2025
No need to turn the camera on. Out of four questions, all subtasks passed on three of them. I was just using it as practice — I didn't use AI, wrote all three questions myself. Level 1 and 2 were fairly simple. Design Banking System Level 3: Schedule Payments transfer(timestamp, source_account_id, target_account_id, amount) -> str|None At timestamp, deduct amount from source_account_id and freeze…
- OA, System Design, Debug, and Craft RoundsDoorDash · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2025
OA: Not LeetCode. You're given an actual scenario and you live-code a Service class on HackerRank right there — the logic is fairly simple, basically a bunch of if-else checks just to see whether your logic is clear, not really algorithm-based at all. But there were three parts. My advice: once you've nailed down the requirements, write fast, otherwise you definitely won't have time left to write…
- Onsite Undone by a Key-Value Store System Design QuestionLinkedIn · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2025In progress
LinkedIn, AI track. I passed the technical screen before the layoffs, and it didn't get scheduled for onsite until this week. The hiring manager round is scheduled for before National Day — nothing much to say about that yet. After preparing for so long I was actually pretty confident, but today one of the system design rounds completely wrecked me. I'm not fully willing to accept that, but I'm s…
- Passing the 60-Question Behavioral Online AssessmentGoogle · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2025
I did it the day before, and the next day I was told I passed. This one, maybe everybody passes. There were about 60 questions total. I can't say the specific questions, so I'll just give you the gist. The types were all about behavior — things like ethics, cooperation, work attitude, and so on. There were five levels total, from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. It says it takes about 30 minu…
- Positive Feedback, Then Strung AlongSoFi · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2025Withdrew
Let me start with the outcome: I interviewed at SoFi in June, and everything from the phone screen to the onsite moved very fast. In the end the recruiter even said it was positive — and then they started stringing me along. The onsite had 3 rounds: React: write a standard CRUD table System Design: design a suggestion system The HM round covered my past experience, debugging, and a random API des…
- PyTorch vs Jax, Then a Question About Bashing AMDNVIDIA · Technical Marketing Engineer, AI Software · Onsite · Jul 2025
Onsite interview 1/4. The first interviewer, 45 minutes, first asked about my resume, then it was an AI technical interview, since the role is technical marketing for AI Software. The interview had three parts. Part 1: Deep Learning Fundamentals Q1: In Machine Learning, what are the high-level trends happening at the framework level? I answered with the evolution from numpy to PyTorch to Jax. He…
- Recruiter Changed the Format Without NoticeTesla · Machine Learning Engineer · Technical Screen · Jul 2025
When I first got this role, the recruiter told me the technical interview would be 70 minutes long, covering Leetcode coding, LangChain, and MLflow. I prepared accordingly — I ground through a good number of Leetcode problems and specifically went and studied a lot of LangChain material. Then I got the official interview email, and the interview had turned into 45 minutes, with no details about t…
- Recruiter Promised Easy-Medium, Got String-Heavy SQL and Rushed OOD CodingBloomberg · Senior Software Engineer - Data Engineering · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Jul 2025
I couldn't find much interview experience for this specific role online, so I'm contributing mine here. The role was Senior Software Engineer - Data Engineering. The interviewer wasn't very enthusiastic. 40 minutes, two questions — the first was SQL, the second felt more like an OOD (object-oriented design) question. The logic in the first SQL question wasn't actually that hard — what was hard wa…
- Referral to Four Onsites, Bombed the Frontend RoundNordstrom · Full-Stack Software Engineer (SDE II) · Onsite · Jul 2025
I got into this team's interview process through a friend's referral. The team was hiring a Full-Stack Engineer (SDE II). It ended up being one HR call, one phone screen, and four onsite rounds. Besides the usual "why are you switching jobs" and "why Nordstrom" questions, what was different from other companies was that they directly asked about my salary expectations and gave me the package righ…
- Smartsheet Account Executive interview: concern about being "a thread"Smartsheet · Account Executive · Other · Jul 2025
My process started with an interview with the line manager. I then met with an EMEA sales manager and sat down with a colleague. The early rounds felt straightforward, and I got the sense they were trying to understand my experience and whether I'd fit the team. The tone was casual, with more discussion about where I'd worked and what I'd done than any kind of tricky assessment. The colleague rou…
- Statistics and Case-Study Questions from the Screening RoundLinkedIn · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Jul 2025
I can't guarantee these answers are 100% correct — take them as reference only! LinkedIn Stats One bank has 5 tellers and a single line; another bank has 5 tellers but 5 separate lines. Which one would you stand in? Simple statistical explanation: the "long plank effect" (the opposite of the weakest-link effect). In a single queue, your waiting time is determined by the fastest available teller.…
- System Design, Two Coding Rounds, and a PIP I Didn't Mention to the RecruiterCoinbase · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jul 2025
HR: Basically just chatted about my general situation. But I didn't tell the recruiter that I'm no longer at Amazon — over the last year and a half I wasn't very proactive at my previous company, and I didn't really listen to my manager, and I got PIP'd in May. (Should I be more upfront with the recruiter about this? If I actually get an offer, will the company find out during the background chec…
- Three Back-to-Back Onsite Rounds and a SQL StandoffPayPal · Data Scientist · Onsite · Jul 2025
Past experience, resume, explaining the role. Then they asked two case questions. Case 1: 3-level apartment plus 1 basement — find the best way to operate the elevator. Case 2: card risk — what will fraudsters do. Onsite: 3 rounds back-to-back. Risk/fraud scenario. Started off talking about my past experience, then the interviewer explained that this DS role isn't mainly about modeling. He gave m…
- Two OA Problems I Couldn't Solve OptimallyCitadel · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2025
I wrote up my Citadel interview experience around this time last year too, and it was pretty easy back then. This time I got the OA invite and just went ahead and did it, and I ended up not finding the optimal solution for either problem, haha. If anyone has ideas, let's discuss. Problem 1 Given an array arr of n integers, for a triplet of 1-based indices i[1], i[2], i[3] (1 ≤ i[1] ≤ i[2] ≤ i[3]…
- Two Technical Screens, Rejected After a Rushed Final Coding RoundTikTok · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jul 2025Rejected
Interviewed a couple months ago. First round was with a North America-based peer. They started off asking some common project questions - what the difficult parts were, how I solved them. Then one coding question, a variant of a LeetCode-style problem. They gave a string and a width. The first part was to split the whole string into lines of that width, and then append a suffix to each line sayin…
- A Four-Round Power DayCapital One · Product Manager · Onsite · Jun 2025Offer
Interview timeline: 5/14 recruiter call 5/27 first round — Product Mini Case 6/4 Power Day 6/6 recruiter notified me I passed *There were two weeks between the recruiter call and the first round because the team wasn't scheduling interviews that particular week. Product Mini Case (1 hour) Mainly an interviewer-led product casing session. The recruiter told me in advance they'd pick one of three C…
- Chime Product Manager interview with two panels and a 90-minute PRD exerciseChime · Product Manager · HR Screen · Jun 2025Rejected
My process moved quickly once it started, but the bar felt high and a few details didn't land the way I expected. I went through a recruiter screen, then a hiring director conversation, followed by two panel interviews. The first panel went reasonably well, and I got good feedback. The second was rougher for me. There was also a PRD writing exercise that took about 90 minutes, although it sounded…
- Chime Software Engineer interview: React and JavaScript component taskChime · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2025
I faced a front-end-focused technical challenge centered on building React/JavaScript components and implementing the data logic behind them. In the first round, I worked in a shared virtual environment to create components in a React/JS app. The components had to render data, and I had to implement the logic that processed the data before rendering. The UI scaffold was already provided. The diff…
- Datavant Software Engineer interview disrupted by reschedulingDatavant · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Jun 2025
The part that defined my experience wasn’t the interviews. It was the coordination. I was scheduled for an HR screen and then a technical screen, but rescheduling became a mess. It took about two weeks and several different coordinators to move the interview. On the day of the rescheduled interview, I arrived early, only for the interviewer not to show up. The recruiter and coordinator didn’t res…
- Discord Software Engineer interview building a multi-client socket chat serverDiscord · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2025Rejected
I was evaluated on building a chat server over sockets. The process felt practical and hands-on, even though I didn't move forward. During the recruiter and setup stage, I was told to prepare for a chat app using TCP clients and sockets. I practiced with the resources provided. In the live coding interview, I implemented a server that could handle multiple clients. I was allowed to look up docume…
- Discord Software Engineer interview: technical screen felt pointlessDiscord · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Jun 2025Rejected
I had a Discord interview where I followed the instructions closely but still didn't progress, which left me frustrated with the technical screen. The recruiter screen involved slow scheduling and initial coordination. During the technical screen, I solved and handled what the interviewer asked, but the conversation felt "pointless," with little discussion or flexibility. Although I had a good te…
- Garmin Software Engineer interview focused on HR, compensation, and fitGarmin · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Jun 2025
I interviewed for a Software Engineer role at Garmin. The first round was mostly about HR, compensation, and fit, and it ended quickly. The HR phone screen covered my resume and behavioral questions, with a strong focus on motivation and discipline. There was no offer. In one case, the salary discussion didn’t align, and in the other, I didn’t continue after the early HR fit check. Location: Olat…
