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
- Two Onsite Rounds, Rejected After a Two-Week WaitSquarepoint · Software Engineer · Intern · Onsite · Jun 2026Rejected
The first round was an OA — I already posted about that separately, so check it out if you get the chance. After the OA I did two rounds of VO. Three rounds in total. Round 1: This interview was with a junior software engineer. He asked a few simple resume questions first — nothing to worry about, the interviewer just wants to understand your background. After that he asked some technical questio…
- Two System Designs, a Tech Talk and a VP Leadership RoundRubrik · Engineering Manager · Senior+ · Onsite · Jun 2026
I went through the Engineering Manager loop at Rubrik across March and April. It was a demanding loop, yet among the better organized and more responsive ones I have done, and the people on the other side clearly put thought into how they ran it. A bit of context: I had spent three years leading engineering teams that built search infrastructure and distributed systems. Rubrik appealed to me sinc…
- Two Unstructured Screens and No Follow-upNVIDIA · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026No response
NVIDIA's interview process came with very little background information from the recruiter. I did not know how many rounds there would be or what each round would cover. They use Workday. I received an email saying they had selected me from the general applicant pool and asking me to fill in my availability online, but it still did not explain what the interview would cover. After the first round…
- U.S. Bank Financial Analyst interview: fit, Excel, and superday conversationsU.S. Bank · Financial Analyst · HR Screen · Jun 2026
My interview path focused on fit and motivation, with enough structure that it felt clear. Early conversations with HR and a manager combined my interests with practical fit questions. We talked about real estate, my Excel skills, and which office I wanted to apply to. The later stages put the industry and my background at the center. I discussed my experience with accounting systems, where I saw…
- Uber Drivers Software Engineer interview: recursive strings and treesUber Drivers · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026
I had two separate interviews built around DSA problems. The first was a recursion-based string-manipulation question. The second moved to trees and asked for a tree coding solution. Both interviews added follow-ups after the main question, so finishing the initial problem was not the end of it. Those extensions raised the difficulty and made the rounds feel more demanding than the opening prompt…
- United Technologies & Information Services Software Engineer Interview Experience: two quick offer pathsUnited Technologies & Information Services · Software Engineer · Jun 2026Offer
I applied online, then a recruiter contacted me by email and scheduling moved quickly. I spoke with two people on Microsoft Teams. It was a straightforward conversation, and they finished by saying they would send a write-up to the hiring manager. Later that same day, I heard they wanted to send an offer letter. I also had a similar experience in a separate run. That time, there was just one 30-m…
- UST Global Software Engineer interview: a rescheduled panel and basic codingUST Global · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026
I expected a normal technical process and first got an HR invitation. I cleared the first technical round, but in the next round the panel said, only minutes after introductions, that it needed to be rescheduled. That made the process feel abrupt and hard to treat as a clean evaluation. A later attempt felt easier and more casual, with resume questions and basic array and hashmap coding. I felt t…
- Veeva Systems Consultant interview: behavioral and take-home case presentationVeeva Systems · Consultant · Take-home Project · Jun 2026
The process felt thorough and mostly well run, although it took a while. The early focus stayed on why I wanted to work there, what value I could bring, and how I presented on a case. There were multiple stages, with relatively short initial screens of around half an hour each and fairly quick feedback on whether I would move forward. Then I had a behavioral round about interactions with people a…
- Verily Software Engineer interview: coding and an HR stepVerily · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026
I applied online and then followed recruiter-driven scheduling. They reviewed my resume, explained the process, and moved me into a technical round before an HR step. The technical part matched what I expected for a software engineering interview there: coding-focused questions in the easy-to-medium range, with nothing that felt far off-script. It felt easier than processes with heavy design or d…
- Volkswagen Group Italia Software Engineer interview: military-related work limited the fitVolkswagen Group Italia · Software Engineer · Other · Jun 2026
I did not get far. After applying, I learned that the only missions available were military-related, which immediately made the fit feel limited. I had one phone interview about my professional project, objectives, and related details. The conversation was fine, but the available work was already a blocker, so the process stopped early. Location: Paris. Overall feedback: positive. Offer status: n…
- Whatnot Account Executive: HR conversation followed by a director interviewWhatnot · Account Executive · HR Screen · Jun 2026No response
My experience was fairly simple and conventional. I first had a conversation with an HR professional, which was pleasant and followed standard questions. Soon after, I met with a director for a second round, and that conversation also felt straightforward. Overall, it didn't feel like a complicated, multi-day process. It was a typical process with two meaningful touchpoints. I followed up to ask…
- Whatnot Software Engineer interview: DSA pre-screen and two technical roundsWhatnot · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026
I started with a structured DSA pre-screen that felt similar to a HireVue or Karat flow. I answered a set of coding prompts and then had a recruiter call. That conversation led into two more technical DSA rounds with engineers from Whatnot. Each session had only a couple of problems, and the interviewers focused on how I was thinking, not just whether I reached the correct output. The process fel…
- Woven by Toyota 2 YOE OnsiteWoven By Toyota · Full Stack Software Engineer · Jun 2026
Two coding rounds. First question was a merge intervals variant dressed up as “Detect attacks along a horizontal line from 0 to 10.” The idea being you have a list of ‘attacks’ represented as intervals of integers/floats (e.g. [1, 2], [3.4, 5.2], and you need to merge the attack intervals to determine T/F representing if the horizontal line was attacked/blanketed in its entirety. Second question… Onsite 0 by longtime
- xAI Software Engineer Interview Experience: a rushed rocket simulationxAI · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026Rejected
After the recruiter step, I had a technical interview that felt medium to hard. The main task was a simulation that involved moving a rocket in a game like setting. I understood the idea and made progress, but the time box was brutal for implementing it cleanly. I ran out of time before I could make the solution fully correct and complete. It felt as though the target was polished execution, not…
- xAI Software Engineer interview: language-model take-homexAI · Software Engineer · Take-home Project · Jun 2026
My process centered on a take-home assignment and a live follow-up. The topic was a Python language-model application. Before writing code, I had to explain at a high level how the language model worked and how that understanding applied to the specific context. In the live portion, I filled in a function based on what the application needed. They seemed to care about correctness and clarity in c…
- Zipline Software Engineer interview: large take-home and five onsite roundsZipline · Software Engineer · Take-home Project · Jun 2026
My process lasted more than three months and felt like I was constantly being passed around. I spoke with two different hiring managers, and the work they assigned was substantial: a very large take-home assignment that I put real effort into and delivered a strong solution for. During a later take-home review, I was told the work looked great and wasn’t something they saw often. Then came the on…
- ZScalar Account Executive interview: mock cold-email exerciseZScalar · Account Executive · Other · Jun 2026Rejected
I had a recruiter call and, about a week later, entered a structured process that moved quickly. It began with a hiring-manager conversation and a mock cold-email exercise. That first stage showed they were testing both how I thought about the role and how I would communicate in a realistic sales motion. If I had advanced, the later steps would have included another account-executive interview, p…
- Zscaler Account Executive objection-handling role playsZscaler · Account Executive · HR Screen · Jun 2026
The process started with a recruiter screen, followed by a round with two interviewers at the same time. That middle stage was more hands-on. I had to work through an objection-handling role play, which forced me to focus on responding in the moment instead of polishing a perfect story. After that, I had another round with senior leadership and a new role-play scenario. The interviews focused on…
- Zscaler Software Engineer interview after an 8-month job huntZscaler · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Jun 2026Offer
I came out of an 8-month job hunt, and once things started moving at Zscaler, they moved quickly. I had been working at Oracle as an SMTS (IC3) until I was laid off in September 2025. My application timeline ran roughly from November 2025 to May 2026. My path to the offer involved both outreach and applications. I used referral support and applied directly through the company's portal. I stayed i…
- Zscaler Software Engineer Senior Staff SDE offer in May 2026Zscaler · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Jun 2026Offer
I applied for a Senior Staff SDE role at Zscaler through a referral and direct portal applications. After I entered the pipeline, a recruiter reached out, and the process started to feel more organized. The process led to an offer in May 2026. The recruiter kept communication on track, which made it clear that the company was actively reviewing my profile. I accepted the offer for the Senior Staf…
- Zscaler Software Engineer: role-focused questions and a poor interview experienceZscaler · Software Engineer · Jun 2026
The process was fairly simple and focused on the role. I saw more situation-based and role-based questions than anything overly abstract. What frustrated me was the way the interview was conducted. The upper-management participants seemed completely disinterested, which made the conversation feel less respectful than it could have been. I didn’t feel the warmth or cordial engagement I’ve come to…
- A 5-Part OA That Was Basically Vibe-Coding With ClaudeInstacart · Backend Engineer · Senior+ · Online Assessment · May 2026Rejected
I've compiled some tips I saw online and added my own experience. The deadline was two weeks. What surprised me was that this OA was completely different from the Instacart OAs I had seen discussed before. It was a 5-part assessment, and the overall format felt more like "AI-assisted full-stack feature implementation" than a traditional coding assessment. Time limit was 90 minutes. The assessment…
- A Bar Raiser and Three Coding RoundsAmazon · Software Engineer · New Grad · Technical Screen · May 2026
R1: Bar Raiser The first interview was the Bar Raiser. It contained only behavioral questions and no coding. R2 Coding: Minimum Point Consumption Across Multiple Programs Problem description A user has points from different programs, such as airline miles, credit-card points, and store points. Each program has a different redemption rate, and the rates change daily. The user wants to pay a fixed…
- A CNN Adversarial-Example Question on Bridge Collapse PredictionGSA · Data Scientist · Technical Screen · May 2026
We talked about research. Explain why this approach would fail: collect bridges and their design drawings from Wikipedia. Train a CNN on these drawings to predict whether a bridge will collapse (or whether it will collapse within the first X years after being built). Then, starting from random noise, use gradient descent to "construct" a drawing plan that makes the model predict a 99.9% probabili…
- A Four-Round Onsite With Two System Design ProblemsWaymo · Software Engineer · Onsite · May 2026
A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn. Apparently the company's valuation went up 4x earlier this year, so they've been hiring a lot lately. The onsite was four rounds total. Round 1: System Design Design a Matchmaking Service: Join matchmaking queue Cancel matchmaking request Match two compatible players Notify both players when a match is found Handle disconnects and expired requests Round…
- A Fresh OA on Deployment Window SchedulingStripe · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · May 2026
Fresh OA! The question was to build a deployment time window scheduler. Time is represented uniformly as minutes within a week, in the range 0 to 10079: 0 means Monday 00:00, 60 means Monday 01:00, and 10079 means Sunday 23:59. All intervals are left-closed, right-open [start, end). There are two kinds of windows in the input: allowed: times when deployment is permitted freeze: times when deploym…
- A Product-Focused Recruiter Screen, Then Sorting Theory and a Concurrency Code ReviewMercor · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · May 2026
Round 1 — Background / recruiting round Self-introduction, plus walk through a project you've worked on recently. They dug deep into the project, but the follow-ups were all from a product angle rather than implementation details: was this decision made by your system or upstream? How do you define "it worked"? What's the success metric for this project? What's your understanding of what Mercor d…
- A Vague Distributed Tree Counting Design ProblemSnowflake · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · May 2026
Phone Screen 1 The interviewer gave me a distributed tree counting problem that took me a while to even understand. There was no starter code or example — he just said to imagine tree nodes distributed across different places on a network, and my job was to design a class to accomplish that. The problem was way too vague at the start, and we spent a long time discussing what exactly he wanted. I…
- A Whisper Streaming Take-home, Then System Design and a Deploy Deep DiveDistyl · AI Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · May 2026
I interviewed for AI Engineer + Backend. First was the recruiter, who asked a lot about customer and user experience, because Distyl does a lot of custom solutions for traditional companies building AI-related products, so it mostly revolved around development experience working with clients — kind of felt like interviewing for an FDE role. I applied for AI Engineer, and the recruiter said the wh…
- Airtable Software Engineer interview with a sharp system design rampAirtable · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · May 2026
I started with an online assessment whose questions felt close to the kind of work Airtable actually does. After submitting it, I moved into a coding round focused again on data structures and algorithms, though it was framed more like a real-world task than pure LeetCode. The time limits and scoring varied, but the expectation stayed consistent: write clean code, handle edge cases, and make it w…
