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
- Amazon Development Center U.S. Software Engineer Interview Experience: onsite loop with STAR follow-upsAmazon Development Center U.S. · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026
My process ran from recruiter submission to HR questions and then an onsite-style technical loop. The onsite included several live coding segments, system design, and behavioral questions about how I would work in the role. Each round mixed categories. Alongside live coding, I discussed system-design tradeoffs and architecture beyond implementation details. For behavioral questions, I used STAR s…
- Amazon DSP Software Engineer Interview Experience: back-to-back behavioral and DSA sessionsAmazon DSP · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
My loop had two back-to-back sessions that were intense but well paced. Early in the first session, the interviewer focused heavily on behavioral stories, then the rest moved into DSA problem solving. The second session followed a similar structure, so I had to alternate between explaining my approach and demonstrating it through coding. I had time to solve DSA questions in each session, but the…
- Amazon DSP Software Engineer Interview Experience: DSA, system design, and GenAI projectsAmazon DSP · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
The process was clear after the initial recruiter coordination. After applying, I had an online coding test on a coding platform, followed quickly by HR-style questions and then a face-to-face technical round with a mix of topics. The technical part drove the process. I had multiple coding questions, including DSA-focused work, and at least one session that combined system design with coding. Acr…
- Amazon DSP Software Engineer Interview Experience: exhaustive leadership and product loopAmazon DSP · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026
The journey involved many people, each testing a different angle of the same skill set. Before the main loop, I had a recruiter screen and a pre-interview check with the hiring manager. I then had technical and product-adjacent conversations with an engineering director, a senior product owner, and senior engineers. The final stretch included Bar Raiser-style interviewers and a hiring-manager con…
- Amazon DSP Software Engineer Interview Experience: Mid-60s score on the OAAmazon DSP · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026Rejected
The online assessment was the hardest gate for me. I had applied earlier in the summer and moved forward to the OA near the start of August. The coding questions threw me off. They did not seem impossible, but I struggled enough to score around the mid-60s overall, and that ended the process for me. From what I saw, people who cleared the OA went into a short, structured technical loop with codin…
- Amazon DSP Software Engineer Interview Experience: timed OA with debugging and work hypotheticalsAmazon DSP · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026Rejected
The online assessment was where I really struggled. I received an invitation to an OA for graduates, and the first programming task had an absurdly short time limit. A large part of it went just to reading and understanding the question. The second test was more reasonable, but the first hurdle had already changed my pace. In a similar OA setup, there was a standard DSA test, an AI-assisted codin…
- Amazon DSP Software Engineer interview with four coding loop roundsAmazon DSP · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
The process followed a familiar Amazon pattern: a recruiter screen, then a time-boxed technical screen with behavioral questions first and a dedicated coding block after that. It ended with time for my questions. The final loop had four technical-style rounds. I solved data structures and algorithms problems in a shared coding environment while explaining my reasoning and trade-offs. Every round…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: 66% OA resultAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026Rejected
After applying, I moved to an OA early in August, and it got difficult quickly. The experience was genuinely bamboozling. It was not one question that threw me off. The whole assessment did. I finished at about 66% overall and did not progress. I did come away with a clearer picture of the next stage. The usual path after the OA was a loop of three rounds, about an hour each, with coding and beha…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: coding plus leadership-principle follow-upsAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026
My path began with a recruiter screen and then a technical screening. That screen had a short introduction, behavioral questions, a coding segment, and time at the end to ask about Amazon. The final loop was much longer. I had multiple one-hour interviews with different people, each mixing live coding and behavioral questions. In the coding rounds, I solved data structures and algorithms problems…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: Director-to-bar-raiser loopAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026
The process began with a recruiter and moved into a long loop with several people. After the recruiter screen, I spoke with an engineering director, then a senior product owner and a senior software engineer. Those rounds focused on fit and how I think through problems rather than gotchas. What stood out was the sequence of people. I then had a pairing stage with two bar raisers and finished with…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: DSA, GenAI, and bug findingAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
I began with resume shortlisting and then moved quickly to an OA. The assessment leaned heavily on DSA patterns, but it was not only about memorized tricks. It also touched broader topics such as GenAI and how it appears in projects. I remember questions involving arrays, stacks, and subsequence-style challenges. Afterward, I had a virtual screening that mixed finding bugs in code with LeetCode-s…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: leadership principles in the final roundAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
The loop had four structured rounds: DSA first, then two lower-level-design rounds. One LLD discussion included gen-AI best practices, and leadership and behavioral questions appeared throughout the loop. The final behavioral and Leadership Principles round had the highest bar. I needed to tie responses closely to specific LP themes across questions and also be ready to explain LeetCode-medium so…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: online coding to face-to-face designAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
I began with an online coding test, followed immediately by HR-style questions after I submitted the result. From that recruiter and HR step, I moved into a face-to-face technical interview that mixed coding and system design. The technical stage had several coding questions alongside design topics, and I then finished with a manager round. It felt average in difficulty because I had to handle de…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: two 30-minute DSA questionsAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
I hit a heavy DSA gate early. I was given two DSA questions with 30 minutes for each one. The round moved quickly, and as soon as I reached the first problem, I realized I was not going to get through that stage. Beyond writing code, I was asked about the time complexity of my solutions and how I would optimize them. That made it difficult because a working solution was not enough. They also want…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: two DSA problems and embedded contextsAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
My first step was a one-on-one virtual technical interview with an engineer. After a quick introduction, I solved two DSA problems on a shared coding platform and explained my approach, including time and space complexity, as I worked. I expected a straightforward phone screen, but the questions were tied to embedded and real-world software contexts. We also went through projects I had worked on,…
- Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services Software Engineer interview with two modesAmazon Kuiper Commercial Services · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
I had back-to-back interviews with the hiring manager and then an engineer from the team. Both were 60 minutes and combined behavioral and technical evaluation. For the first 15 minutes of each conversation, the questions were behavioral. The rest shifted to DSA. I could not settle into just one mode because I had to switch quickly from explaining past choices to solving problems with standard al…
- Amazon Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: Calculator prompt without requirementsAmazon Services · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
The process was frustrating. In one early call, the hiring manager seemed to have reviewed my resume around the time of the interview. They asked roughly seven or eight questions, with follow-ups when an answer prompted more curiosity, but the process still felt uneven and ended with a quick rejection signal. Another stage was a video phone screen with Leadership-Principles behavioral questions a…
- Amazon Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: Leadership Principles and tradeoffs under uncertaintyAmazon Services · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026
After a recruiter conversation, I moved into the main loop with several interviewers. The behavioral portion was closely tied to Amazon's Leadership Principles, and each interviewer focused on a different part of my background. Technical discussions mixed LeetCode-style coding with open-ended questions about how I made decisions when requirements or information were incomplete. The loop included…
- AMD Construction Group Software Engineer Interview Experience: Linux, embedded work, and networkingAMD Construction Group · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
After a recruiter call, I entered a structured technical loop that lasted a few weeks. The recruiter covered my background and the rough process, and about a week later I was in the first technical screen. The later conversations with engineers and the hiring manager focused mostly on my past projects, especially Linux systems and embedded-style software work. I also completed a coding session on…
- An 80-Minute HackerRank with a Slow Web IDEIBM · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
The assessment lasted 80 minutes in total. At the beginning, it recommended choosing one of three frameworks: Django, Spring Boot, or Node. The first problem was LeetCode's Design Authentication Manager. The second problem provided a web application for a ticket-booking system. I had to fix errors in the backend. It involved basic concepts such as RESTful APIs, caching, and paginating returned da…
- An 80-Minute OA with Tree Distances and Django DebuggingIBM · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
IBM's OA was unproctored. Here are a few pitfalls to watch out for: Q1: Tree Pythagorean Triples The problem: Given a tree and three fixed vertices x, y, z, count the vertices whose distances to those three vertices, sorted as a ≤ b ≤ c, form a Pythagorean triple: a² + b² = c², with all three distances positive integers. My approach: Run BFS or DFS once from each of x, y, z, record the distances…
- An AI Coding Edge Case with Filtered Parent TasksRippling · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
This AI coding phone screen ended in rejection. Sending the problem directly to an AI could miss an important edge case: if a parent is filtered out, its child task should be filtered out as well. One test case for that behavior was: The fourth task was unrelated and should remain in the result, while the parent and grandchild should not appear because the grandparent was filtered.
- An AI-Assisted Transfer Price Comparison PrototypeRemitly · Staff AI-Native Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
This team is looking for an AI-native engineer whose main responsibility is making various internal processes and tools AI-driven. They started interviewing with AI coding last quarter. You need to set up your own AI environment and share your screen. The AI coding interview mainly evaluates how you use AI, so the problem itself is usually not very hard. This one was considered one of the more co…
- An Amsterdam Dinner Led to a Fast OA, Then 40 Minutes on My ResumeHeadlands · Quantitative Researcher · New Grad · Technical Screen · Aug 2026No response
I'm a rising senior at a UK undergrad program. Over the summer, I got invited to a dinner in Amsterdam by Headlands, which is how I first learned about the company. I applied for the Amsterdam QR New Grad role, and the process moved really fast: applied 7/26 -> OA 7/28 -> first round interview 9/8. OA: 18 questions. 10 multiple choice questions covering probability and statistics, hypothesis test…
- An API Data-Ingestion Gap Ended the ProcessInstacart · AI Analytics Lead II · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
There was no interview experience for this role on the forum, so I am sharing mine. From the job description, this role looks like an analytics engineer plus a product analyst. With the impact of AI, one person really can do all of this work. Process: After a friend referred me, the recruiter reached out. Online assessment: six or seven SQL questions, not hard. I passed. HM interview: the HM seem…
- An applied AI Software Engineer Interview Experience: clear recruiter handoff to hiring managerAn applied AI · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026In progress
The process for the Software Engineer role began with a straightforward recruiter screen. It was easy and focused on my background and whether I seemed like a fit. The communication was clear about what would come next. I then scheduled a hiring-manager round. The flow felt organized and respectful, and the timeline and coordination were timely. I appreciated that the recruiter explained the purp…
- An applied AI Software Engineer Interview Experience: Invitation promised, then rejection emailAn applied AI · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
A recruiter told me I was moving forward and that an invitation for the first interview was coming. Before that, they sent questions in advance, and I answered everything. As far as I knew, none of those responses was a problem. The process then ended with a rejection email that gave no explanation or feedback. That lack of communication was the hardest part, especially because I had been told to…
- An L4 Loop Downleveled to L3Google · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026In progress
I recently interviewed for Google L4 R1 and R2. After the interviews, I was downleveled to L3. Round 1 Coding: Given a file system containing directories and files, where each file has a size and each directory contains files or another directory, calculate the total entity size for a given ID that may identify either a directory or a file. It was somewhat like a wrapped version of LeetCode 339.…
- An Onsite With No LeetCodeeBay · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026
This was the most unusual interview I have had so far. There was not a single LeetCode question in the onsite. First round I wrote a shopping cart. There was not much algorithm work, and it felt as though the round was testing how I communicated with the interviewer. Second round I was asked basic questions about data structures and complexity, including very basic topics such as lists, hashes, a…
- An Unclear Car-Location API and Binary-Search HintsApplied Intuition · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
This might have been a new question, though I'd only read about ten interview reports. I'd definitely never seen this one. I don't know the result yet, but I didn't finish, so I'm sure this is a rejection report. The main issue was some domain knowledge. I couldn't quickly step back from it, and wasted a lot of time. The interview guidance was also a bit off. I said, "Couldn't this use recursion?…
