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.
- 3935
- Experiences
- 857
- Companies
- 532
- Offers
3935 results
- L3Harris Software Engineer Interview Experience: smooth referral to STAR behavioral Teams interviewL3Harris · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026
After I applied, I had a recruiter phone call and the next step was set up immediately. There was no separate pass-or-fail update. At the end of the call, I was told a Teams interview with the hiring manager would be scheduled, and I chose a time. Because I had a referral, the recruiter interaction felt smooth. The hiring-manager interview on Teams was straightforward. I discussed my experience a…
- L3Harris Software Engineer Interview Experience: Take-home after three roundsL3Harris · Software Engineer · Take-home Project · Aug 2026No response
I went through three rounds, starting with a hiring-manager conversation and then another engineer. The last stage was a team interview where I was grilled for about an hour. I also had a take-home assignment, which was the hardest part of the process. The difficulty rose as I progressed. By the team round, it felt more intense and less like a conversation. I thought I did reasonably well in the…
- L4 Phone Screen and Three Onsite Coding RoundsGoogle · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026
Phone Interview Given a binary tree representing reporting relationships in a company, where each node represents an employee and its parent represents the employee's direct manager, write an algorithm to find the nearest common manager of a given set of multiple employees. This is a variant of Lowest Common Ancestor. There are K employees in the set and the tree height is H. Optimize the time co…
- L4 Virtual Onsite, 12 Minutes of Coding on a Vague String-Templating QuestionGoogle · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
First round VO, coding — the interviewer gave me this question: given a KV map and a string where keys are marked as indices, replace the parts of the string wrapped in %% with the corresponding value from the KV map: {USER=>admin, HOME=>/%USER%/home} Input: I am %USER% My home is %HOME% Output: I am admin My home is /admin/home Then he had me come up with edge cases. My first thought was: if we…
- L5 Interviews in Canada and Team MatchingInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026In progress
It took almost a month after I applied for HR to reach out. I had almost thought I'd been rejected. The OA was the vibe-coding OA that people have been talking about a lot on the forum lately. After doing it myself, I felt that ten minutes to communicate with the AI product manager was nowhere near enough, unless I used speech-to-text input. Onsite 1: Calculate Equation Expression. Onsite 2: A re…
- Language Expectations and Stateful NamingMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
The author describes a Microsoft senior-engineering phone screen followed by three virtual-onsite rounds. The screen required a production-quality integer parser supporting arbitrary bases. The applicant advanced despite overlooking negative numbers. Subsequent sessions covered reconstructing digits from word representations, converting hexadecimal input to an IPv4 address, discussing a dictionar…
- Lead MTS Loop With LLD and a Cross-Datacenter File Transfer HLDSalesforce · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Other · Aug 2026
Backstory I'm a backend and platform engineer with over a decade of experience, mostly in real-time data pipelines, event-driven systems and multi-tenant SaaS. My daily tools are Kafka, Cassandra and distributed APIs serving millions of requests, with hard walls between tenants. The role I applied for was Lead MTS in Salesforce's Service Cloud org. How I Prepared What worked: For DSA I concentrat…
- Leadership Principles and a Timestamp-Based LRU-Style ObjectAmazon · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
A female PM and an SDE interviewed me. They began with Leadership Principles questions: Tell me about a time when you needed to take responsibility or ownership. Tell me about a time when you faced a challenge. These were standard Leadership Principles questions. The follow-ups were about AI and impact: how many people used what I built, what my manager's reaction was, and related points. Then I…
- Leonardo Software Engineer Interview Experience: calm discussions of background and credentialsLeonardo · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026Offer
The process started with a friendly, relatively light conversation with the team in Italy about my experience, technical background, and degree. The tone was welcoming and relaxed, with no major surprises. It felt more like an effort to understand my fit than a test full of gotchas. The interviews then became more structured. I spoke with HR and senior technical stakeholders. The sequence was cle…
- Linux Questions and Python File ParsingDeshaw · System Developer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
The first interview mainly asked various Linux questions: what happens behind the scenes when I run ls in a shell, the differences between containers and virtual machines, and other knowledge questions like those. I wasn't asked to write code. After passing the first interview, I had a virtual onsite with three interviews. Beforehand, I asked the recruiter what each one would cover, but they abso…
- LRU Cache and Thread SafetySnapchat · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Aug 2026In progress
Here is my Snap senior phone screen. It started immediately with behavioral questions. It looks like I still need to keep a few short stories ready in my regular preparation, since I have heard that the quality of the behavioral answers carries weight in the evaluation. The coding question was the classic LRU Cache problem. I had to be careful with the boundary cases while implementing it. The fo…
- Marvell Technology Software Engineer Interview Experience: tense resume-depth questioningMarvell Technology · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
My first impression was negative. The interviewers seemed to be looking for flaws instead of evaluating my skills. I felt the questions were testing for the answers they expected rather than exploring whether I could solve problems well. Technically, the conversations drew on my resume and the smaller details behind the processes I had mentioned. They were checking how deep my understanding went,…
- Matrix Missions Marketing Analytics Specialist interview with panel roundMatrix Missions · Marketing Analytics Specialist · HR Screen · Aug 2026Offer
I began with an HR phone screen covering my resume, salary expectations, and basic background. The process then had two interviews. The first was with the line manager and focused on relevant experience plus scenario questions about how I would handle work in practice. The second was a panel interview with senior team members. The process was smooth and structured. It took about three weeks from…
- MBDA Software Engineer Interview Experience: Welcoming panel and conversational paceMBDA · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
I felt surprisingly at ease from the moment I arrived. The panel was welcoming, warm, and down to earth. The conversation moved at a relaxed pace, giving me time to explain my answers without feeling rushed or pressured. The questions mixed technical and non-technical topics, but the tone stayed conversational. I discussed what I could bring to the role and my background without feeling interroga…
- MDA Software Engineer Interview Experience: Reading and testing Python codeMDA · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
The interview began with a recruiter-style conversation. It included behavioral questions, quick trivia from my CV, and why I was interested in the company. Then it moved to Python. I had to analyze an existing piece of code, explain what it did, and verify it by testing it. After walking through the code's behavior, I ran the tests and explained what I found. The interview was direct. It was les…
- MDA Software Engineer interview with basic Python and disrupted onsiteMDA · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Offer
I began with a short expectation-setting call that felt vague, more like a quick check than a senior-level conversation. I discussed my experience and answered one basic Python question about a list versus a tuple. There was little follow-up about what the role required or what they expected at that level. The next day I went to the Farnborough office for an onsite. The meeting felt chaotic: the…
- Microchip Technology Software Engineer Interview Experience: Full-day onsite and fab tourMicrochip Technology · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Offer
The onsite was a long, full-day experience that started early and ran until mid-afternoon. It followed a structured schedule of one-on-one conversations with multiple team members, plus meetings with a director and managers from test engineering, failure analysis, and reliability. I had time to ask questions, saw the lab, and had lunch during the day. The intensity came from meeting so many peopl…
- MIIS, Logic Puzzles, and Four Coding TasksEpic Systems · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
Online Assessment Format Two minutes: Answer as many short logic/reasoning questions as possible. Twenty MIIS questions. Fifteen math/logic questions. Four programming questions. MIIS Questions MIIS arithmetic Calculate the value of 1 + 1 * 3 / 2 + 7. MIIS strings and type conversion Given A = "JOHN", B = "JANE", and C = "3DOES", find the value of 0.A + B + C - 3. Math / Logic Questions Coins Som…
- Minesweeper and a Non-Thread-Safe Video Player in One 90-Minute RoundNuro · Software Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
We interviewed together on: Coding Algorithm + Coding System, 1 hour 30 minutes total. Coding Algorithm: a Minesweeper problem. The interviewer split it into Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1: without clicking any cell, output the board after revealing it — mainly testing whether you know what number to output for cells next to a mine. Part 2: DFS. On Part 2 I got stuck because I didn't fully clarify the…
- ML Infra Onsite Day 1, Data Governance and Inference Platform DesignFaire · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026
I interviewed for ML Infra. The first round was Data Reliability & Governance. It was kind of a discussion-based design round. We talked about: availability freshness completeness validity consistency distribution compliance lineage data quality We also talked about the feature store, how to monitor it, and how to do data backfill. The second round was ML Systems Design. I was asked to design a r…
- Msft Software Engineer Interview Experience: linked list, kth largest, and URL shortenerMsft · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
A former colleague referred me, and the process began with a technical phone screen. The DSA questions were genuinely difficult for me. One involved reversing a linked list, and another asked for the kth largest element in an array. About a week later, I moved to an onsite. The coding round centered on system design for a scalable URL shortener. Partway through, I realized I had practiced somethi…
- Msft Software Engineer Interview Experience: organized fit, collaboration, and technical-depth loopMsft · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026Offer
After connecting with the recruiter through LinkedIn, I began with a screening call about my background and interest in the role. Once that went well, I moved into a deliberately paced loop with clear communication about the next steps. The early interviews focused on fit and collaboration before going deeper technically. A hiring-manager-style discussion covered my leadership approach, prior exp…
- Nailed Every Onsite Question, Still Got RejectedSIG (Susquehanna) · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
In May, someone from SIG reached out, so I figured I'd give it a shot and set up a recruiter call, which quickly turned into a phone interview. The phone interview was the classic "movie search" problem — basically you're given a CSV-format list of movies and asked to design a class that supports fast filtering, like pulling movies from year xx to year yy. Also, the constructor's time complexity…
- Nailed the Memorized Coding Question, Lost the System Design RoundOpenAI · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
I applied to OpenAI myself back in June. As the interview got closer, I saw on the forum that the interview reports all seemed to be about the same handful of questions, so I decided to prepare those thoroughly and really understand them before going in. I ended up rescheduling three times, and the recruiter got angry — said I'd rescheduled three times already, which meant the timing wasn't right…
- NeoSOFT Software Engineer Interview Experience: challenging technical discussion with clear HR communicationNeoSOFT · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026Offer
The process was positive and well communicated from start to finish. After the recruiter conversation, the technical discussion came a little later. It was challenging without being harsh. The interviewer was kind, asked questions grounded in real experience, and explained how the answers would matter in the work. HR communication also stood out. It was clear and responsive, without the awkward g…
- One-Day Israel Loop with Bike-Sharing Design and Project Deep-DiveMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Aug 2026
This is my account of getting through the senior fullstack loop at Microsoft's Israel office, for a team working on AI and cyber security. I had ten years behind me, split between hands-on fullstack work and leading a team. The opening was a Senior Software Engineer (Fullstack) position in Herzliya, on a team that straddles AI and security. Because the level was senior or lead, I figured that cod…
- Online Assessment on Recoverable Elements from Range-Sum QueriesEthos · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
Recoverable Elements from Range-Sum Queries You are given an unknown integer array A of length N, with elements indexed from 1 to N. You will receive Q range-sum queries. Each query contains two integers L and R, and gives you the sum of all elements of A from index L to index R. Your task is to use the given query information to find all the elements A[i] whose exact value can be uniquely determ…
- Online Assessment with Perfect Substring and Connected GroupsVisa · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
Online Assessment First question: Perfect Substring Given a string s made up only of digits, and an integer k, we need to find the number of substrings that satisfy a specific condition: every distinct digit character that appears in the substring must appear exactly k times. Input: string s and integer k Output: the total count of substrings satisfying the condition Example: if s = "11020211" an…
- Onsite Coding Went Great, Then the HM's System Design Round Sank ItAnduril · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
This role was billed as fullstack, but the interviews barely touched anything front-end related. And the final round — I got screwed over by the hiring manager. The phone screen was on 4/17. After I finished it we just chatted. The next day HR told me I passed and moved on to the onsite (VO). VO Coding 1 Question 1: a simple calculator that only needs to support addition and subtraction. ["+", 1,…
- Onsite Day 2 Coding on Discounts Over a Category DAGFaire · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026
Coding Part 1 Product categories on an e-commerce platform are hierarchical. The categories are not a strict tree, they form a DAG. That is, a category can belong to several parent categories at the same time. For example: C3_Shirts can belong to both [C2_Mens, C2_Womens] A product inherits: the discount of its own category the discounts of all of its ancestor categories The discount actually app…
