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
- Box Frontend Engineer interview: unclear final coding feedbackBox · Frontend Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026
The interviews were technically focused, but the final coding conversations soured the process for me. After the earlier rounds went smoothly, I reached a final coding interview where the interviewer couldn’t explain the questions or feedback clearly. It was hard to stay focused on implementing the solution because I kept feeling like the target was moving while I worked. The feedback afterward m…
- Box Solutions Engineer interview: manager conversation with little room to respondBox · Solutions Engineer · Other · Apr 2026Rejected
The process had a disappointing start. The first round was a conversation with a manager, but the interviewer was so quiet that it didn't feel like a dialogue. I didn't get much chance to explain my experience before the call moved on. From my perspective, it wasn't a serious evaluation of fit or skills. I felt as though I wasn't allowed to contribute, and I didn't move forward afterward. What I…
- C++ Concepts After Earlier TestsMillennium · Software Engineer · Intern · Onsite · Apr 2026Rejected
The author reports passing an online assessment and a cognitive test for a Millennium software engineering internship, then being rejected in the first virtual-onsite round. That interview involved little coding. Instead, the interviewer examined the resume closely, asking about projects and their difficult components. Technical discussion focused heavily on C++ concurrency, including mutexes and…
- Canonical Software Engineer interview spanning React, C++, Linux, and full-stack JavaScriptCanonical · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026
I interviewed for a Software Engineer role through a multi-interview, all-technical process. It moved from front-end topics into broader full-stack engineering, including Linux and open source. In the front-end interview, I was asked about React and general front-end topics. The systems and programming interview shifted to C++ and Linux. Another round covered full-stack development fundamentals i…
- Canonical Software Engineer interview with a long written stageCanonical · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Apr 2026
I interviewed for a Software Engineer role, and the overall experience felt extremely punishing. It started with an unusually long, essay-style written stage, followed by aptitude and other tests, and ended with a slow or non-specific rejection. For the written interview, or long questionnaire, I answered extensive essay-style questions about my background. They often asked for school-related det…
- Canonical Software Engineer technical rounds on Linux and open sourceCanonical · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026
I interviewed for the Software Engineer role and went through a two-track technical process in the middle of a longer interview sequence. One track focused on architecture and engineering depth. The other covered Linux, open-source topics, and platform fundamentals. In the software architecture and engineering round, I was asked about architecture qualities, engineering methodologies, and how eng…
- Clipboard Health Account Executive interview: two sales-focused roundsClipboard Health · Account Executive · Other · Apr 2026
My process felt fairly straightforward compared with what I'd heard from other job searches. After applying, I completed two interview rounds. The questions were mostly sales focused, covering how I thought about pitching, handling sales scenarios, and presenting my approach. The interviews didn't feel overly technical or unusually difficult. What surprised me most was how manageable the experien…
- Cloudflare Software Engineer interview with Battleship coding and Austin office tourCloudflare · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026Rejected
My process took long enough that it started to feel like the goalposts were moving. It began with a hiring manager call, followed by a live coding round where I built a Battleship-style game. Then came a larger loop with an "orange cloud" behavioral interview, a debugging discussion, a system design conversation, and a PM-focused interview. I also had another hiring manager conversation that incl…
- Cloudflare Solutions Engineer: missed interviews and scheduling problemsCloudflare · Solutions Engineer · Other · Apr 2026Withdrew
My process started normally enough with an interview with the hiring manager, followed by a live coding round that was scheduled for later. The people involved on the technical side seemed cool and friendly. I wasn't as nervous as I expected because the interviewers were engaged and explained what they worked on. The recruiter and coordination side made the experience much harder. There were sche…
- CodeSignal OA with a Tetris-Style Block-Placement ProblemCapital One · Applied Researcher · Online Assessment · Apr 2026
A friend referred me to Capital One (C1). After the recruiter phone screen, they sent a CodeSignal Online Assessment, which had to be completed within 7-10 days — 4 questions, 70 minutes total. I got the link last Friday and finished it this Tuesday. I had grinded LeetCode and the C1-tagged questions from the last three months on 1point3acres, but only the first question actually overlapped. My f…
- Coding and System Design Blended Into One 75-Minute ScreenAttentive · Software Engineer · New Grad · Technical Screen · Apr 2026
It was 75 minutes long. They said it would be coding + system design, but in practice the two were mixed together, and the questions were pretty scattered and casual. The last 5 minutes were reverse behavioral questions, where I got to ask them things. The problem wasn't quite like a LeetCode problem — they didn't clearly spell out what the input was. They wanted me to design it myself and then j…
- Coding Round Caught Me Off Guard, RejectedByteDance · Site Reliability Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026Rejected
I mass-applied online. They reached out within 1-2 days, and the interview got scheduled right away. The first round was pretty easy — a binary search type problem, not from LeetCode. Find something in a sorted array. I spent a good chunk of the remaining time just chatting with the interviewer about the company. For the second round I was expecting behavioral/fundamentals stuff — Linux/network/k…
- Cold Applied from Finance, Extra System Design Round Led to an OfferMicrosoft · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Apr 2026Offer
I come from finance and wanted to move into AI and LLM work. For a few months I took on projects with early-stage startups, building RAG systems and AI-native products on the side. I want to stress one thing, because I didn't really believe it myself before: you can switch fields even in the middle of a career, with no big tech background. I had no referral either and just applied cold. What got…
- Confluent Software Engineer interview with a four-round virtual onsiteConfluent · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026
A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, and the process started with a coding conversation with a senior engineer. That round went really well. I finished confidently, and the interviewer seemed genuinely impressed. What followed felt chaotic and stressful. I was moved into a virtual onsite almost immediately. It covered four rounds over two days, including coding, a hiring manager discussion,…
- Confluent Software Engineer interview: LeetCode-focused technical rounds over several weeksConfluent · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026
My interviews followed a fairly standard sequence of two or three steps. I started with an initial recruiter screen, moved into technical interviews, and later had a behavioral or manager-focused conversation. The period from my first interview to the final decision lasted a couple of weeks, while the rounds themselves were usually quick and back to back. The early stage was a coding-focused tech…
- Crowdstrike Account Executive interview with sales management meetingsCrowdstrike · Account Executive · HR Screen · Apr 2026Rejected
I started with a quick recruiter call and moved through the next steps quickly. The process felt straightforward, with short, focused conversations instead of anything especially technical. I was asked behavioral questions and general cybersecurity questions, with the discussion returning to my motivation, what I wanted from the role, and how my experience matched the business’s needs. One import…
- Crowdstrike Account Executive panel postponed without a rescheduleCrowdstrike · Account Executive · HR Screen · Apr 2026No response
I went into the process expecting a typical sales interview cadence. After a screening and a second interview that felt straightforward, I moved to a panel with less than a day to prepare for a long session. Several delays kept pushing back my plans. During the panel presentation, there was also an unexpected language-related change request, which threw me off in the middle of the presentation. T…
- CSAT Tracker Question on the Phone ScreenDecagon · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Apr 2026
I interviewed for 45 minutes and got one question. I'd solved it before, but I still wrote two bugs. Luckily I caught and fixed both while testing, and it passed in the end. Thanks to the interviewer for going easy on me. The question was the one that comes up most often for the phone screen: design a customer satisfaction (CSAT) tracking class. Scores are fixed in the range 1 to 5. __init__(self…
- Data Viz Case, App Store Marketplace Case, and Life StoryShopify · Data Scientist · Onsite · Apr 2026
The questions are the same as what's already covered in other interview reports out there, so I'll just add some extra details. Data Interpretation They start by showing you a chart of weekly session count over the past 3 years, with a spike around May, and ask you to give a hypothesis for it. Then they add conversion rate to the same chart, plus another metric (I forget exactly what it was) — at…
- Docusign Software Engineer interview with timed DSA and DBMS problemsDocusign · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Apr 2026Rejected
My process quickly became an assessment-style experience. I completed two closely related DSA problems in a timed format. One seemed to rely on graph-style reasoning. There was also a DBMS question that was trickier than the coding problems. It involved joins and aggregate-style thinking, so I had to slow down and pay close attention to what the question was asking. Recruiting coordination was an…
- Docusign Software Engineer interview: API script and HackerRank-style exercisesDocusign · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Apr 2026
My process was shorter and heavily front-loaded. It began with a quick recruiter screen, then moved into a panel-style technical evaluation. The questions covered coding and system design, and nothing felt wildly unexpected. They were standard areas they wanted to see me handle calmly. The process continued in a way that felt somewhat drawn out but still organized. I had four interviews in total,…
- Dropbox Software Engineer interview with multi-week gaps between stagesDropbox · Software Engineer · Apr 2026Rejected
My interview process stretched over a long period, and the gaps between stages made it hard to keep momentum. There were multi-week pauses, and the schedule didn’t feel tightly managed from one step to the next. Some interviewers were very new, so the flow sometimes felt more like they were learning the rubric than evaluating me. The technical parts were awkward too. The coding setup didn’t work…
- Dropbox Software Engineer interview: CodeSignal assessment followed by rejection without a conversationDropbox · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Apr 2026Rejected
My Dropbox process felt unusually automated and cold. I applied online, got an invite link to complete a CodeSignal assessment shortly after, and then received a rejection without ever speaking to anyone at the company. No human conversation came between the assessment and the decision. Because I never had a chance to clarify anything or show context beyond the coding test, the outcome felt "not…
- Drw Holdings Quantitative Analyst timed probability assessmentDrw Holdings · Quantitative Analyst · Online Assessment · Apr 2026
I started with a timed online math and probability assessment. The questions felt genuinely hard, and the time limit was strict. My impression was that it tested how quickly I could work through probability mechanics. When I didn't make it through that stage, the process effectively ended there. In another attempt, I got further and kept running into probability and options concepts. After an ini…
- Drw Quantitative Analyst math test and options theory interviewsDrw · Quantitative Analyst · Other · Apr 2026
After a recruiter call, the process moved into a math and probability test. It was difficult enough that it didn't feel like a formality. Then came an HR screen followed by several interviews across different teams, with questions focused heavily on probability and option intuition. Early in the process, I was told that option theory was something they taught internally and wouldn't necessarily b…
- Drw Software Engineer interview reaching the fourth technical roundDrw · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Apr 2026
I made it as far as the fourth technical round. The process felt like a series of technical screens that built on one another. Eventually, I reached a C++-focused interview with a C++ problem. After that, the conversation shifted to my personal projects, which was a welcome change from the problem-solving questions. I had already completed an HR call earlier in the process. Overall, the structure…
- Duolingo Software Engineer tree traversal and graph coding assessmentDuolingo · Software Engineer · HR Screen · Apr 2026
After a conversation with a recruiter, I did a technical screening focused on a coding problem that felt very "standard" for interviews, something like a tree traversal. There was also a short follow-up about how I would improve the algorithm's efficiency. The interviewer kept the conversation moving. Although the core question wasn't unfamiliar, the optimization questions made me slow down and t…
- E5 Full Loop with a Card-Deck AI Coding RoundMeta · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Apr 2026
Recruiter reachout came in late February. After that, every step got scheduled about a month out — the whole process moved at a pretty relaxed pace. Phone Screen LC 65 (medium; also the second question from a 12/4 compiled coding list on the forum). VO (virtual onsite) Coding: LC 121; LC 199 AI coding: a card deck problem BQ: favorite project (scope/complexity) / conflict resolution / moving fast…
- Easy Coding Question, Confusing Rename Follow-up, RejectedGoogle · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Technical Screen · Apr 2026Rejected
Coding: convert snake_case to camelCase (e.g. foo_bar -> fooBar). The input is guaranteed to be valid snake_case (no leading underscore, no trailing underscore, no double underscore). The coding part was easy, I banged it out in under twenty lines within a few minutes, though I did spend a bit of time clarifying what counted as valid snake_case input since I wasn't totally sure what the interview…
- Eight Rounds, Then Ghosted by a Vanishing HRZest AI · Data Scientist · Onsite · Apr 2026No response
Let me share the funniest interview experience I've had recently. I saw the posting online and applied on a whim. The recruiter emailed me to reach out. From start to finish there were 8 rounds total. Yes, 8, for a company this small. First was the hiring manager round: resume and machine learning concepts. Then a technical screen. The first question showed a graph where training, testing, and va…