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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
- An Unfamiliar IoT Log-Platform Design QuestionOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
Coding: KV store. System design: This seemed to be a new question. I don't think I'd seen it in interview reports. Design an IoT log platform: Large numbers of devices continuously collect logs both online and offline, and upload them in batches when online. The platform can also send requests to devices asking them to record particular types of logs. The platform needs to receive and store logs…
- Applied AI Tech Screen with an Async Refund Debugging Question and Rapid-Fire LLM QuestionsMercor · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
Today I had a tech screen for Mercor's Applied AI role. The debugging question: The other rapid-fire questions: What is idempotency, and why do we need idempotent operations? What is RAG, and how is it related to fine-tuning? How would you handle context limit exceeded in an LLM application? LLM calls are usually stateless. How would you make an LLM application stateful? How would you handle prom…
- Article Vote TrackerRippling · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
Got the Article Vote Tracker question. Part 1 involved adding articles, recording up/down votes, detecting vote flips, and returning the last 3 unique flipped articles. The follow-up asked how to handle a very large flip history. The key optimization is to maintain only the last 3 unique flipped article IDs per user instead of storing the complete history. I completed Part 1 but did not proceed t…
- Auto-Rejected Before the OA Deadline Even HitDRW · Quantitative Researcher · New Grad · Online Assessment · Sep 2026Rejected
I cold-applied online to DRW's US New Grad Quantitative Researcher role. Less than a week after applying, I got an online assessment invite. The email said the OA link would expire in seven days, and there was no other deadline notice anywhere. Then, five days later, I got an email saying I hadn't finished the OA in time, and I was flat-out rejected. But the OA link was still valid, so I went ahe…
- Auto-Sent CodeSignal OA With a Four-Level Task Management SystemAirbnb · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Sep 2026
I mass-applied, and got the OA invite right away. It was probably sent automatically by the system. Standard CodeSignal Industry Coding Assessment. You have to share your screen the entire time and keep your mic on so it picks up audio. The problem I got was a task management system. Level 1: The task management system should support adding, updating and retrieving tasks. Level 2: The task manage…
- Back-to-Back Phone Screens, Binary Search on Logs and a 3 Requests/Second API LimitAttentive · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
I had two phone screens back to back. Coding: binary search on logs, a variant of a problem that is already on the forum. The twist is that the log timestamps can be duplicated, and the time window I have to return is all inclusive, [start, end]. Also, start and end can fall outside the time range of the current dataset. System design: it was kind of like pulling data from a third party, and I fi…
- Backend Practical on a Questionnaire Evaluator, RejectedZipHQ · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
After HR reached out to me, we scheduled the backend practical interview. Questions: adding features on top of a questionnaire parsing system and condition evaluator Part 1: enable numeric question input and condition evaluator (in addition to text input) enable functionality create new test cases Part 2: enable multiple condition evaluation Enable AND/OR on different conditions of different ques…
- Behavioral Plus a %KEY% Env-Var Parser, Rejected After R1Google · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
Background 2.5 years of experience, Java backend at the "banana" company. Timeline 5/7 mass-applied to SWE III - Bay Area 7/8 xWF reached out (I did the GHA last year and then got rejected at the resume stage, so this time it was skipped entirely) 8/5 R1 day R1 was all on one day: 45 min behavioral + 45 min technical. Behavioral Self-intro first, then pretty common questions. The main ones they a…
- Bootstrap Phone Screen, Consistent Hashing Debug Round, AI Coding DAG, RejectedDoorDash · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
Phone screen: it was the classic bootstrap question, same as most of the interview reports out there. The hard part of the question is adding the HTTP response status handling on top. I strongly recommend the public EngineBogie write-up of this one ("Implement a BootstrapService to aggregate data from multiple services"). Onsite: Debug: the question was the same round robin one. It's actually not…
- Bug-Hunt, AI-Pairing, and Map-Drawing Rounds, No System DesignStripe · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
I've already forgotten what the phone screen was, but it wasn't hard. The onsite loop was really different from other companies — felt different from what I'd seen and from other people's experiences too. Round 1 was a bug-hunting round, roughly three problems. Make sure you set up your IDE and install the plugins ahead of time — the details are in the email. (I wasn't careful and didn't read the…
- Building a Directory Tree and Traversing It with a Manual StackUber · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
The interview lasted 45 minutes. We first went through my resume. I was asked about my most challenging project and the technology stack I normally use, and the interviewer introduced the work of the hiring group. The remaining half hour was for coding. Given a series of file paths, I needed to build a directory tree and find the full path of a file in that tree. Directory names could repeat, but…
- Chargeback Ingestion and a Database Read BottleneckNubank · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
Problem: Design a Chargeback Ingestion System Design a system that processes card chargeback/dispute transactions. The system receives chargeback-related transaction events, validates and deduplicates them, tracks their processing state, persists them, and eventually exports eligible transactions into CSV files. These CSV files must be sent to Mastercard via FTP/SFTP. The difficulty felt all righ…
- CodeSignal OA, Four Questions in 70 MinutesSIG (Susquehanna) · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Sep 2026
Sharing the SIG CodeSignal I just did — same as usual, 70 minutes, 4 questions. Overall not hard, didn't need much in the way of algorithms, but there was a decent amount of code to write, and within the limited time you had to get all the little details right. Not sure if the questions are fixed — I know people who got different questions, so it might not be for the same position. The first two…
- Coding Phone Screen on an IDE Function Signature MatcherIBM · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
The task is to implement an IDE-style function signature lookup engine. It has two core APIs: Register a function (register): store the function name, its list of parameter types, and whether it takes variadic arguments. Query for matches (find_matches): given a list of argument types for a call, return the names of all functions that can be legally called with them. Core interface definition: Th…
- Coding Screen, Four-Round Virtual Onsite, RejectedToast · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
First was a coding round. It didn't seem too hard, basically one map and one loop, and it was a question I'd seen on the forum. After that came the long, stinky virtual onsite. System design: this was also on the forum. It's basically designing a restaurant seat reservation system. I'd suggest looking at Alex Xu's book, which has something similar, and then summarizing it yourself. This round was…
- Coding, AI-Assisted Coding, System Design and a Bar RaiserAirwallex · Backend Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
I went through the loop for a Software Engineer II backend position at Airwallex in Singapore. In total there were four interview rounds, plus one extra HR conversation where we talked about which team I'd want to land in. The four rounds were a coding interview, an AI-assisted coding interview, a system design interview, and a final Bar Raiser. The coding round gave me a dynamic programming prob…
- Data Platform Loop, Rejected After the Final System Design RoundNetflix · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
I think the team I interviewed for was data platform. A recruiter reached out because I had related experience a few years ago. From other posts I used to think the problem solving round and the coding round were different, but after going through it they feel like essentially the same thing. Netflix's interview process is very long, and different teams probably test different things, so you need…
- Database and Notification System Design Onsite, Then a Skeptical HM RoundCoreWeave · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
This recruiter gives very specific prep notes. For the phone screen they basically told me the questions outright. They gave notes for the Onsite too, but the design questions themselves are very open ended, so the notes only help a little. For reference only ~ Database design: the interviewer was friendly and easy to talk to. His day-to-day work isn't DB internals, so I'm not sure whether I answ…
- dbt Labs Team, Stumped by a SQL Engine Disk-Write QuestionFivetran · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
Fivetran acquired dbt Labs, and this position is under dbt Labs. HR call, pretty standard, just collecting background - 30 min HM call, introduced how the team is set up, standard behavioral questions - 1 hour System design: design a simplified version of WhatsApp. I felt the interviewer's level was just so-so — he was still getting stuck on RDBMS vs NoSQL differences, that kind of old-school que…
- Delivery Billing and Rounding DecisionsRippling · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
The author describes a Rippling recruiter screen followed by an hour-long HackerRank technical interview where AI assistance was encouraged. The recruiter discussed project impact, responsibilities, motivation, AI-tool use, and practical job requirements. The coding exercise tracked delivery costs using driver rates that could change over time. Important requirements included ignoring duplicate d…
- Design-Heavy Loop After Lots of Peer Mock InterviewsAsana · Software Engineer · Other · Sep 2026
I'm a mid-level engineer with roughly 3-4 years of experience, almost all of it in backend work, mostly distributed systems at fintech companies. I went to a state school and did just one internship during college. Asana hands candidates a study guide, and I'd tell anyone to work through it, even if they're interviewing somewhere else. Most of my own studying was the video lessons and quizzes fro…
- Designing Twitter for Timeline Scale and High AvailabilitySocure · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
Interview question: Design Twitter. This was a system design question, and the overall task was simply to design Twitter/X. They first asked about the basic functional requirements: Create an account Let users post tweets Follow and unfollow users View the home timeline Like and retweet Comment View trending or popular tweets Then they asked me to draw the overall architecture and the core entiti…
- Devbox System Design Phone Screen, Built the Wrong ThingOpenAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
I was asked the devbox design question and I failed to recognize it as such, since I didn't practice it much, nor was it among the hot questions on the forum. I ended up creating a generic container orchestration platform. Another interview-prep site I looked at does mark it as a MUST, so it would be useful for other candidates to peek at other question lists too. The interview experience was ove…
- Downleveled from L6 to L5, Same Question Twice, RejectedDatabricks · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
I applied for L6 with 9 years of experience, and got a referral. The HR screen questions made me a little uncomfortable. Starting from the first company after I graduated all the way to my current one, they asked about every single one why I left and whether I got promoted. But the HR seemed nice, and scheduled a phone screen for a week later. Phone screen: the book seller question. Honestly I di…
- DSA, a File System LLD, and a URL Shortener DesignUber Freight · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
Round 1 — DSA There is a car and N riders. Each rider has two constraints: L[i] — the minimum number of other riders this rider is willing to share the ride with. H[i] — the maximum number of other riders this rider is willing to share the ride with. If k riders are selected, every selected rider must satisfy L[i]
- E-commerce Backend, One Technical Round Ending on Spiral Matrix Follow-upsByteDance · Software Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
TikTok SWE Intern, E-commerce Backend. Referral. One virtual round. Rejected. Background Applied through a referral. Position and team: E-commerce Backend. Timeline 08/06 applied 08/07 received the OA 08/23 HR scheduled the interview 09/11 first technical round 09/26 got the result (rejected) Round 1, Technical (1 hr) The interviewer spoke Chinese and the whole thing was in Chinese. Self-introduc…
- Explaining an Expense Rules Engine Before Using AIRippling · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
The author reports passing Rippling’s first AI-assisted interview, which used an expense-policy evaluation exercise. Their approach began with discussing requirements and edge cases, then outlining classes and basic functions while explaining design decisions. This initial work took more than 20 minutes. Only afterward did the author ask AI to complete implementation details within that structure…
- Exploring Employee and Audit Tables with the Hiring ManagerApple · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
It was a team focused more on internal work. The first round was a technical interview with the hiring manager, and we started solving problems with almost no self-introduction. I have to say Apple's questions were very detailed. It really felt like they were testing technical ability through the work you normally do. I needed to think aloud; they cared a lot about how I understood the data and e…
- Failed the Easy Card Game Problem in the Technical ScreenAffirm · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
I had reviewed nothing but hard problems and never reviewed this easy kind of one, and of course that's what I got. Ha. The problem: 52 playing cards, shuffle first, and each person takes a pile. Each round you compare whose top card is bigger. The side with the bigger card seems to take the other side's card too and put it aside together with their own (I forgot the exact rules, but I think that…
- Failed the First-Round UnionIterator QuestionMongoDB · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
First round phone screen. I got asked an Iterator question, and I failed because I didn't practice enough. I'm sharing the question for everyone. Overall I thought the interview experience was pretty good. The interviewer was really nice and gave me hints, and I feel like their company culture is good too, and the work-life balance is good as well. Implement a UnionIterator class that takes two s…
