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
- Rejected After Answering Every QuestionHudson River Trading · Site Reliability Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
Role: Site Reliability Engineer I had found a really useful interview report on the forum before mine, and the overlap with what I actually got asked was pretty high. This is also my own area of work, so going into the interview I felt like I had a 100% chance of passing, but I still failed. I'm not really sure why. Let me write up roughly what was asked — honestly you can just ask AI what kinds…
- Rejected After the Infrastructure Onsite RoundOpenAI · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
Phone Screen: Coding — Snapshot Set Implement a Set that supports snapshots. Besides the normal add/remove operations, you need to support creating a snapshot and being able to read the state of the set at a given snapshot moment. Onsite 1: System Design — Design a Payment System Design a payment system where a transaction first goes through an external payment service for approval/denial. Once a…
- Rejected Before the Final Data Analytics Coding RoundVirtu Financial · Quantitative Researcher · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
First, there was a 35-minute logic test. The content was very simple, just some pattern recognition and things like that. After that, the difficulty went up. After asking a few questions about my resume, the first interviewer gave me a graph theory brainteaser: Let there be a polygon with n vertices. What is the maximum number of edges you can draw between them without making a triangle (three ve…
- Renesas Software Engineer Interview Experience: HirePro assessment and LRU cacheRenesas · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
I took a HirePro online assessment that was structured and time-boxed. It began with multiple-choice questions on operating systems, DBMS, and firmware-related material. There was also a small coding section with two questions tied to articulation points, and I discussed my project details during the process. After that, I got more DSA-focused questions about cache memory. The main task was imple…
- Renesas Software Engineer Interview Experience: Written offer did not match salary discussionRenesas · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
I expected a straightforward mid-level process, but the company suggested a staff-level title. It sounded flattering at first, but also made me uneasy because the numbers did not seem to leave much room later. Several interviewers had poor connectivity. Their audio dropped constantly, I could not hear the full questions, and no one suggested a phone call or a reschedule. I had to guess what was b…
- Reviewing an AI-Assisted Batching PRDatadog · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Aug 2026
In the code review round, I was given a pull request for an issue where a Python application was crashing under heavy load. The pull request changed the existing synchronous processor, which handled one request at a time, into a batched processor that handled 40 requests at a time. The repository still included the synchronous processor as a reference. However, if creation of the batched processo…
- Reviewing and Improving Pull Requests with Claude CodeAnthropic · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026
This new question had probably been in use for a few months. I was given an online VS Code environment and a site similar to GitHub. It contained four pull requests, and I was allowed to use Claude Code. The task had two parts. First, I needed to go through every pull request, explain the problem each one solved, and comment on each one. Second, I had to choose one pull request, improve it, and u…
- Same-Day RejectionApple · Machine Learning Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
The team is under iCloud and mainly works on time series and operations research optimization. The first round was a resume deep dive with the hiring manager. They asked how to decide which cloud storage tier to use for a user's files, such as AWS S3 versus AWS S3 Glacier, since different tiers have different costs. It was essentially a classification problem: predicting those files' access proba…
- Scheduling Rounds and an Onsite RejectionNuro · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
I had my Nuro onsite last week and received a rejection email yesterday. I'm sharing the experience to give something back to the forum. Phone: Coding: Essentially Course Schedule II, solved with topological sorting. The follow-up asked how to change the code for multiple threads. System design: A question that had appeared on the forum, though I hadn't seen it at the time. A video needs three pr…
- Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Software Engineer Interview Experience: Values and networking basicsSchweitzer Engineering Laboratories · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026
The process was long and included both an HR screen and an in-person component. The HR conversation focused on values, and the interviewer kept returning to how I think about those fundamentals rather than moving straight into technical questions. The technical side covered computer-science basics and several computer-networking questions. The pace was more intensive than I expected, but the over…
- Screen Plus 4-Round VO, Rejected Two Weeks LaterBaseten · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Rejected
A recruiter reached out to me by email. I didn't actually know this company at first, but later I found out it does AI inference and is a competitor of Fireworks. They're already at Series F with a $13B valuation. Supposedly their headcount is going to grow 50% this year. I interviewed for the General SWE position. The process was as follows: Recruiter call HM call (background + behavioral) Techn…
- Seventeen Quantitative and Logic QuestionsSIG (Susquehanna) · Data Scientist · Online Assessment · Aug 2026
The online assessment contained 17 questions. Question 1 You walk into a barn and see ants, cows, and chickens. There are 570 legs in total. The number of ants is twice the number of chickens, and the number of cows is twice the number of ants. Compute the number of ants. Question 2 You are on an island inhabited by knights, who always tell the truth, and knaves, who always lie. Perlica and Chen…
- SHI International Account Executive Interview Experience: Three-phase process before September startSHI International · Account Executive · HR Screen · Aug 2026
I went through a three-phase process over about 2 to 3 weeks. It started with a short phone screen, roughly 20 to 25 minutes, which was mainly an introductory conversation to get to know me. I then had video interviews with a recruiting manager and a sales manager. Each conversation was part of a smooth, straightforward progression. The final step was another interview scheduled for September, ab…
- Ship a Working App, Not Just LeetCodeOpenAI · Full-Stack Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026Offer
Before I get into it: this is a writeup of my full process interviewing for a Full-Stack role at OpenAI, along with my impressions, as a reference for people prepping. OpenAI's interviews are pretty different from traditional big-tech interviews (especially the pure-LeetCode-grinding kind) — it leans a lot more toward "real engineering + product sense + mission fit," so if you only prepped LeetCo…
- Shortest Unique Substrings for UI ShortcutsAtlassian · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
In a Web UI dropdown, users needed help quickly memorizing keyboard shortcuts. For every string in an input list, find its shortest unique substring and wrap that substring with the tags and . Implement a function that performs this transformation. The detailed requirements were: Uniqueness: The chosen substring must not appear anywhere as a substring of any other string in the input list…
- Six Weeks of E5 Preparation and an Equity NegotiationMeta · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Aug 2026Offer
Sharing my recent Meta E5 interview experience. Hope it helps people preparing. Background: Bay Area Backend / Distributed Systems About 7 years of experience Target level: E5 Senior Software Engineer Preparation time: About 6 weeks Overall impression: Meta E5 doesn't lean especially heavily on hard algorithms. It looks more at a senior engineer's overall ability: consistent coding, depth in syst…
- Six-Person Panel, Then the Role Was Put on HoldDisney · Data Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Aug 2026
There's very little Disney interview content on this forum, and the interview format depends entirely on the hiring manager for each team, so it's almost completely different from team to team. Just treat this as a rough reference. I interviewed with Disney's Experience division, which supposedly is a lot easier than the Streaming side. The title was Sr Data Engineer. Mid-August: applied through…
- Société Générale Software Engineer Interview Experience: concurrency and the Saga patternSociété Générale · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
The interview focused on technical questions about concurrency and reliability. The interviewer asked about multithreading, including deadlock and livelock, then pushed me to reason through how I would resolve several multithreading exercises. The conversation also covered microservices, particularly the Saga pattern and fault tolerance. It was more about working through system behavior than reme…
- Société Générale Software Engineer Interview Experience: Git, Java, and Spring Boot scenariosSociété Générale · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
The interview began like other technical discussions. I introduced myself, explained the domain I had worked in, and talked about projects I wanted to showcase. The interviewer then moved to scenario-based questions tied to engineering foundations. The questions covered Git, Java, and Spring Boot. They stayed grounded in practical work instead of only theory. The difficulty was average, and it di…
- Société Générale Software Engineer Interview Experience: PHP and Angular technical roundsSociété Générale · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Aug 2026
My process opened with a recruiter-style conversation where I introduced myself and talked through my background. Then I had two technical rounds, a first and second level, focused on my projects and problem solving, with a strong emphasis on PHP and Angular. The interviewers also asked about APIs, databases, and application architecture. In the first technical round, I started with an introducti…
- Société Générale Software Engineer interview with WinForms mismatchSociété Générale · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
I went through a short, fast-moving process centered on a hiring-manager discussion and a coding session. The manager round covered my past experience, then I had an objective-oriented coding exercise rather than a usual LeetCode-style problem. There was also an HR call afterward that felt separate from the main loop. What stayed with me was the gap between the technical conversation and my expec…
- Splendor Card Purchase Simulation with a Concurrency Follow-upBrex · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
Implement a card simulation system similar to the board game Splendor. A player holds gems in five colors: Blue (B), White (W), Green (G), Red (R), Yellow (Y). Each card has a gem cost to purchase it, and the card itself has a color. The data model and code structure are up to you. There are three tasks to implement: Implement a can_purchase(card, player_gems) function. Given a card and the playe…
- Spreadsheet Coding Round, Rejected for Weak System DesignCitadel · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
Sharing my recent first technical round for an experienced-hire role on Treasury Engineering at the Citadel hedge fund. It was in Python and lasted about an hour. For the first 15 minutes or so we talked about my background. They asked whether I prefer research or engineering, what I like most and least about my current job from a technical point of view, and whether I take part in production sup…
- SQL Metrics and a KYC Conversion CaseAirwallex · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
I recently interviewed for a Data Scientist role at Airwallex and wanted to contribute my interview experience. Overall, it was SQL plus a case study. The questions themselves were not especially hard, but the pace was fairly fast, and the case placed more weight on product sense and analytical thinking. First part: SQL They gave me three tables, roughly sessions, signup, and merchant. I remember…
- SQL, Python, and ExperimentationYelp · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
Overall, there were three parts: SQL, Python, and experimentation. SQL: the main focus They provide several table schemas. The first question starts with basic aggregation. You just need to use count(distinct ...) flexibly together with sensible filtering, so the key is to understand the table schemas carefully first. You can ask more questions. The second question generally tests a simple metric…
- System Design Screen on the Bookstore Question, Passed After a WeekDatabricks · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026In progress
The interviewer seemed like a very senior person, I felt his level was really high. I got the hugely popular Bookstore question. He asked a lot of questions about failure modes. For example: if the request inserts into the DB but then SQS fails, what should happen? How can we prevent that? I said I would use a transaction outbox. He said he had never heard of that pattern, we spent a while with m…
- Table Transactions with Commit and RollbackA A Addepar · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026
Coding / OOD + Data Structure The interview used a simplified table: I needed to implement: The inputs for the basic operations were simply the parameters in each method signature. showTable() printed the current table. There were no especially complicated return-value requirements. The table could be modified only after a transaction had begun. The transaction behavior was similar to a database:…
- Teledyne Technologies Software Engineer Interview Experience: confrontational technical interviewTeledyne Technologies · Software Engineer · Aug 2026
The interview looked standard on paper, with technical and behavioral questions. I understood what they were looking for until one interviewer became confrontational, arguing, raising their voice, and pushing in a way that felt intended to put me down. I stayed as calm and professional as I could, but the exchange felt hostile and humiliating. I initially thought the pressure might be an intentio…
- Text-Note LRU Coding and an Interviewer Who Just Hung UpJ.P. Morgan · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026Rejected
I've been job hunting recently, and an HR person from my old company reached out to me and set up an interview. It started with 2 rounds, BQ + coding. I didn't really want to go back to a former employer, but I figured I'd use it as practice, so I took it. Overall the experience was the same familiar flavor — mainly just terrible. The first round was BQ with an interviewer who'd been there a good…
- The Classic Elevator Question, Two System Design Rounds, and On to Team MatchingPinterest · Software Engineer · Onsite · Aug 2026In progress
Phone: Classic elevator question. Q1: Given n elevators, all starting on floor 1. Then there's a sequence of calls; return which elevator the last call ends up assigned to. You can assume each call finishes before the next one starts. Follow-up: Given elevators with random starting positions, again a sequence of calls; return which elevator the last call is assigned to. This time, when each call…
