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
- Great Feedback Despite Fumbling C++ TriviaApple · Software Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
I mass-applied online, and 3 days later a recruiter picked me up; the team I was interviewing with was a pretty good match. The first round went straight into a tech interview. I started with a self-introduction and a brief chat about my resume, no very technical questions there. Then it moved into coding. No algorithms - they used their own custom question, and I was allowed to use AI. Basically…
- Grilled on Using LLMs to Drive Self-Driving CarsAurora · Machine Learning Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
I interviewed with Aurora for an MLE role. Overall the questions were pretty middle-of-the-road and not really that hard. Maybe I just wasn't prepared enough and didn't manage to wow them. The senior package can only go up to about 500k at most, which maybe isn't all that attractive either. The question that came up the most in the interviews was how to use LLMs in autonomous driving, how to use…
- Grocery Pricing Coding, Inventory System Design, and a 20-Minute BehavioralInstacart · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
Two coding rounds, one system design round, and one behavioral round. Coding question 1 Given input strings in the format SKUid|SKUNAME|QUANTITY|Price, output the total quantity and the total price in dollars. The price in the input is in cents. Watch out for bad input. Besides the input above, there is also a discount input, in the formats SKUid|axf|20 and SKUid|bxf|5|2. The first format is a 20…
- HackerRank, Sudoku, Machine Coding and a DevProd Values RoundConfluent · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
Online Assessment A 60-minute HackerRank test with 3 coding problems. Phone Interview (DSA Round) Verify Sudoku (check whether a Sudoku board is valid) Solve Sudoku Machine Coding Round Find word in a list of documents (find a specific word in a list of documents). Find Phrase in the same sequence they appear in list of documents (find a phrase in the list of documents, with the words in the give…
- Hand-Coding a Cache, Then a 90-Minute Mini Project Running 4-5 AI AgentsPhysical Intelligence · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026In progress
I'm still in the process, so I'll mainly go over the flow and format of each round. After mass-applying, the first round was a 45-minute HM round, mostly chatting about my background. Then 1h of hand-coding. They provided a VS Code SSH environment and a project skeleton. HR had told me ahead of time that the rough scope would be backend and DB related, and in the end it was mainly implementing a…
- Hat Assignments in an Early-Career OnsiteRoblox · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
The author reports two coding interviews during a Roblox early-career virtual onsite. One problem asked for the number of valid hat assignments and the highest score obtainable when hats carry point values. The author considered dynamic programming or backtracking, noting that the smaller input size might permit the latter. The second problem was identified only as a Candy Crush exercise, without…
- Hiring Manager and Python Phone Screen PassedDiscord · Data Scientist · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Sep 2026In progress
I've recently been interviewing for a Senior DS role at Discord. I just passed the hiring manager and technical phone interviews and am preparing for the virtual onsite. HM: Introduce yourself. Behavioral question: Tell me about a time you used causal inference to solve a business issue. What was the challenge, and what would you do if you did this project again? At the end there was a small case…
- Hong Kong GQS Summer 2027Bank of America · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
Describe a key accomplishment that best illustrates your personal initiative and willingness to push beyond what is required. Discuss a recent trend in the financial markets. Describe a time you solved a complex problem that required a lot of careful analysis on your part. Describe a time when you developed a strong relationship with a teammate or client. Coding 1 — Beautiful Strings: calculate t…
- HR Screen, Then a River-Crossing Brainteaser Instead of CodingCisco · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
I applied for an SDE role on the Switch team. The first round was over Wedex, 30 minutes, with a female HR person. She asked things like where I live and where I'm eligible to work — that kind of question, nothing about my past experience. At the end I asked her how to prepare for the next round. She said this one would be switch-related, so I should probably brush up on some switching fundamenta…
- I Built a Transformer When a Decision Tree Would Do, Then Got GhostedCitadel Securities · Research Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026No response
I work in tech. Every time I get ready to switch jobs, a pile of workload drags me back, so I just kind of go with the flow. Three months ago (I had 4.5 YOE at the time), a recruiter reached out saying some trading companies could do 3-days-a-week hybrid in Florida. Then the team they actually lined up didn't match the pitch lol, they said it was New York only. I wasn't that interested and honest…
- In-Person Onsite with an AI-Augmented Rate Limiter Round and a Reference Check Before the OfferSnowflake · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Offer
It's actually been a while since I interviewed, but I was recently looking back on my job switch this year and it came to mind. It was a pretty distinctive interview experience, so I'm writing it down to give back to the forum. I'm an MLE. Every other company I interviewed with leaned toward models; this was the only one that leaned toward agents, and the title was very on-trend: "AI Engineer". T…
- Indexing and Insertion in an Unrolled ListIndeed · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
The author describes a tricky coding exercise from an Indeed virtual onsite involving a linked structure whose nodes each hold an array, an occupancy count, and a next-node reference. The first task was to retrieve an element using its position across the entire structure. The report discusses locating the relevant node and relates lookup cost to the number of nodes traversed. The second task add…
- Interviewer Couldn't Follow My One-Pass DFS TrickLinkedIn · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
Two questions. The first was to merge an n-ary tree by key -- only nodes that share the same key get merged. It's solvable with DFS. Make sure to ask about the corner cases up front, like whether the root keys are even the same. The second question was similar in spirit. The interviewer completely did not understand this problem. I wrote out the following conversion formula, which lets you solve…
- Junior Quant Dev Hiring Manager Round, Rapid-Fire Python and CS FundamentalsEngelhart · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
I interviewed for the Engelhart Junior Quantitative Developer role, on the US Power & Gas / West Power & Carbon side. The whole process felt very much like a Quant Dev interview: they look at Python / CS fundamentals, and they also care a lot about data pipelines, model productionization and system design. Of the rounds I went through, the earlier one was more about background plus Python / engin…
- L4 Most-Active-User Coding Went Fine, Rejected After a Relentless BQ RoundGoogle · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
Coding: There are different messages, undirected (A, B). I had to write a method register to store these messages, and another method mostActiveUser() that computes and returns the person who has messaged the most users. I clarified the problem, used a hashmap, and finished writing it quickly. For space complexity I said O(N) at first, but he pointed out that every key maps to its own set, and I…
- L4 Timeline, Meeting Rooms II, and an Offline-Sync Design RoundGoogle · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
07/27: got the questionnaire 08/11: recruiter connected 08/24: R1, and R2 got scheduled the same day 09/17: R2 Coding 1: Meeting Rooms II Coding 2: Jump Game Design: design the client-side part of a system where users can edit some data. The network isn't always reliable, so while editing it needs to support local storage, and sync the edits with the server once the network comes back. There can…
- Leadership and Fullstack Phone Screen, Rejected Over 'Not Enough Impact'Meta · Data Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
From the recruiter to the interviewers, the whole thing gave off an absurd vibe. I was applying for a senior position, and the job description didn't even list a level at the time. After I applied, the recruiter had me submit my availability directly — no call at all. Once it was scheduled, I was told it would be one Leadership round and one Fullstack round. I thought that was a little strange at…
- Leveled Up to Senior Bar, Rejected After a Messy System DesignAttentive · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
I applied for SWE II. HR call - 2026-08-26 The questions were: How much do you know about Attentive? Are you actively interviewing right now? Do you have any offer deadlines? Do you need sponsorship? What are the compensation range you are targeting? Then they asked me to introduce myself. Are you able to talk about a feature or product that you work on like end-to-end or a zero-to-one product? W…
- Library OA, Pricing, and Inventory DesignInstacart · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
I translated this passage into Chinese as follows: All the questions I received were exactly the same as those in another post. 0) OA: A full-stack CodeSignal repository test, with AI. A book/library management system. 1) Coding problem 1: The first problem was translating expressions (T1 = T4). 2) Coding problem 2: Calculate the total price of products in an array of strings, in the format sku|p…
- LLM Agent Q&A, a LeetCode 837 Variant, and a Coding RejectUiPath · Machine Learning Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
Role and interview process The role is an MLE position related to Agents. A recruiter reached out to me, and there were three rounds of interviews in total. Round 1: Recruiter call (30 minutes) We talked about my background, my current job search status, what direction I want to go in, and my timeline. The recruiter was very friendly and gave a detailed introduction to the company, but said the s…
- Load Factor, Reachability, and Explaining the ApproachRobinhood · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
The coding question was the classic load factor problem and was essentially the standard version. At the beginning, I asked whether I could assume that every node was reachable. The interviewer said yes, so I implemented the solution under that assumption. When I finished, it passed three of the four tests. I then started adding an explicit reachability check. My main advice from this interview i…
- Lock-Free Producer-Consumer, Currency Arbitrage, and an Order BookCitadel Securities · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026
Implement a threaded producer-consumer, optimize from a mutex and then a spin lock. A list of currency conversions: determine if an arbitrage opportunity exists. Find the sequence of conversions to make money. Implement an order book data structure: maintain the order of incoming ask/bid/qty price, aggregate. Cancel an order without impacting other orders. Implement a smart queue: maintain the or…
- Log Parser and Anomaly Detector Coded Against Pytest in an IDENinjatrader · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
An interview at NinjaTrader, a small brokerage. Server Log Analyzer and Anomaly Detector Problem environment: an IDE with server.log (sample logs), analyzer_stub.py (skeleton code), and test.py (pytest unit tests). You have to implement the functions below. Input data spec (JSON Schema): the input is multi-line text, and each line is a JSON string containing these 4 required fields: timestamp: a…
- Long Loop, Good Rounds, Then SilenceAmperity · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026Rejected
This company's interview process is seriously long and miserable. The HR keeps calling you without any heads-up, which feels like harassment. After the interviews they disappear for no reason, even though every round went well. My guess is that they do a back-channel background check behind your back. One of the interviewers is close with a PE in my org, so they probably went and asked him. Our P…
- Matrix Swaps and Infrastructure DesignUber · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026
The author describes an Uber infrastructure-backend interview process with a phone screen and three virtual-onsite rounds. The screen asked for a valid sequence of adjacent swaps that arranges a matrix into alternating-direction sorted rows, followed by discussion of reducing the number of operations. The applicant had to create tests and found the time limit demanding. Onsite coding involved rep…
- Measuring Meeting-Free Work TimeIntuit · Machine Learning Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
The report presents an Intuit AI Science technical-screen exercise reconstructed from images. The task uses a year of company meeting records to assess how much uninterrupted coding time employees have during business hours. Each attendance record identifies an employee and a meeting, together with joining and leaving times. Candidates are asked to determine the longest available interval for eac…
- Merging K Timestamped Price Feeds into a Running Price in Technical Round 3Citadel · Software Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Sep 2026
Citadel SWE intern technical interview. The interviewer was from Citadel Securities. Problem description: You are given K data streams (feeds), and each feed is already sorted by timestamp in ascending order. Each event has two fields: a timestamp and a price delta. Requirement: merge the events from all the feeds in time order, and after processing each event, output the current cumulative absol…
- Messaging at 100 Million DAU and Gaps in My DesignAnthropic · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026Rejected
The question was to design a simple text-messaging app, with a fairly clear scope: Only conversations between two people, no group chats. Text only, no images or videos. Web clients only, with no mobile push notifications to consider. 100 million DAU. Keep messages when the recipient is offline so they can be read after the recipient comes back online. The interviewer asked me to share my entire…
- Messenger Design and a Next-Day PassLyft · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Sep 2026
The target level was Senior. The process was bizarre, but I'll leave that aside. Overall, the interviews weren't difficult. Surprisingly, the hardest coding problem was in the phone screen. Phone-screen coding: LeetCode 76. VO 1: The behavioral round. They asked about my past projects, which project I was proudest of, how I had moved projects forward with colleagues over the past two years, and s…
- Minimizing a String by Removing AB and BBJ.P. Morgan · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Sep 2026
[Problem description] Given a string seq consisting only of the characters 'A' and 'B'. You can repeatedly perform the following operation: Delete any occurrence of the substring "AB" or "BB". After deletion, the remaining parts of the string are joined together. Your task is to determine the minimum possible length of the string after any number of valid deletions. Note: A substring is a contigu…
