Instacart Interview Questions
Practice 86 real interview questions from Instacart. Covers Coding & Algorithms, Analytics & Experimentation, Behavioral & Leadership, System Design. For roles including Software Engineer, Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer.
"I got asked a hardcore MCM DP question and I saw it on PracHub as well. Solved that question in 5 minutes. Without PracHub I doubt I could solve it in 5 hours. Though somehow didn't get hired, perhaps I guess I solved it too fast? /s"
"Believe me i'm a student here jn US. Recently interviewed for MSFT. They asked me exact question from PracHub. I saw it the night before and ignored it cause why waste time on random sites. I legit wanna go back and redo this whole thing if I had chance. Not saying will work for everyone but there is certainly some merit to that website. And i'm gonna use it in future prep from now on like lc tagged"
"10 years of experience but never worked at a top company. PracHub's senior-level questions helped me break into FAANG at 35. Age is just a number."
"I was skeptical about the 'real questions' claim, so I put it to the test. I searched for the exact question I got grilled on at my last Meta onsite... and it was right there. Word for word."
"Got a Google recruiter call on Monday, interview on Friday. Crammed PracHub for 4 days. Passed every round. This platform is a miracle worker."
"I've used LC, Glassdoor, and random Discords. Nothing comes close to the accuracy here. The questions are actually current — that's what got me. Felt like I had a cheat sheet during the interview."
"The solution quality is insane. It covers approach, edge cases, time complexity, follow-ups. Nothing else comes close."
"Legit the only resource you need. TC went from 180k -> 350k. Just memorize the top 50 for your target company and you're golden."
"PracHub Premium for one month cost me the price of two coffees a week. It landed me a $280K+ starting offer."
"Literally just signed a $600k offer. I only had 2 weeks to prep, so I focused entirely on the company-tagged lists here. If you're targeting L5+, don't overthink it."
"Coaches and bootcamp prep courses cost around $200-300 but PracHub Premium is actually less than a Netflix subscription. And it landed me a $178K offer."
"I honestly don't know how you guys gather so many real interview questions. It's almost scary. I walked into my Amazon loop and recognized 3 out of 4 problems from your database."
"Discovered PracHub 10 days before my interview. By day 5, I stopped being nervous. By interview day, I was actually excited to show what I knew."
"I recently cleared Uber interviews (strong hire in the design round) and all the questions were present in prachub."
"The search is what sold me. I typed in a really niche DP problem I got asked last year and it actually came up, full breakdown and everything. These guys are clearly updating it constantly."
Explain how to understand a large codebase fast
You are given an unfamiliar, large codebase with many classes and modules. You may use an IDE (jump-to-definition, find usages, call hierarchy) and AI...
Solve bank, password, expression algorithm tasks
Question Implement a banking system that supports four specified operations within 90 minutes. Implement a password-related algorithm (e.g., validatin...
Evaluate arithmetic expression using DFS
Given a string representing an arithmetic expression with non-negative integers, +, -, *, /, parentheses, and optional spaces, evaluate its value. Use...
Lead a zero-to-one initiative effectively
Take a Vague Mandate ("Improve Shopper Retention") from Idea to Launch Context You work in a two‑sided, on‑demand marketplace where "shoppers" are ind...
Prioritize conflicting tasks under shifting deadlines
Behavioral: Prioritizing Three Critical Requests Under a One‑Day Constraint Scenario You have 8 hours today and no backup. Three concurrent deliverabl...
Parse a password from a matrix
Given an m x n matrix of characters, a starting coordinate (row, col), and a string of moves consisting of 'U', 'D', 'L', 'R', parse a password by vis...
Optimize file reading and expression DFS
Question Given a large password file, build a program to read the required password(s) while minimizing memory usage. How would you optimize the space...
Explain handling very large datasets
Describe a project where you ingested and processed a dataset of at least 500 million rows or 1 TB end-to-end. Detail storage formats and partitioning...
Diagnose and fix low conversion rigorously
Diagnose a Checkout Conversion Drop After a Promo Banner Launch Scenario Week-over-week, checkout conversion fell from 42% to 35% after a new promo ba...
Design a versioned key-value store
Design and implement a versioned key-value store that supports set(key, value, timestamp) and get(key, timestamp) to retrieve the most recent value at...
Describe cross-functional collaboration under time pressure
Tell me about a time you led a cross-functional initiative with ambiguous requirements and severe time pressure. The interviewer asked generic or shif...
Recommend and validate a budget allocation strategy
Using insights you would derive from the SQL task (top advertiser by total spend; most profitable program by net profit and by margin), propose a conc...
Improve low R² without p‑hacking
Predicting Contribution per Order with Low R² Context You are modeling contribution per order (a continuous per-order outcome such as margin or profit...
Solve a challenge using data
Behavioral Prompt: High-Stakes Data Decision You Led You are interviewing for a Data Scientist role and are asked to demonstrate business impact throu...
Define what you seek next, with trade-offs
Behavioral & Leadership — Role Fit, Trade‑offs, and 90‑Day Fit Check (Data Scientist) Task Articulate what you need to thrive in your next Data Scient...
Design a scalable inventory system
System Design: Multi-Warehouse, Multi-Channel Inventory Service You are designing an inventory service for an e-commerce platform that sells across mu...
Justify Instacart fit and leaving your role
Behavioral HR Screen — Data Scientist Prompt Why Instacart specifically (vs. DoorDash/Uber Eats or your current company)? - Identify 2–3 Instacart pro...
Optimize file reads for password validation
Given a multi-gigabyte credentials file on disk with one record per line in the format user_id,salt,password_hash (hex), implement validate(user_id, p...
Evaluate Miami Ultrafast impact on orders
Instacart launched an Ultrafast delivery feature in Miami two months ago. You have weekly orders per geo for the past 52 weeks; Miami is treated from ...
Describe cross-team collaboration approach
Cross-Functional Collaboration, Cadence, Artifacts, and Conflict Resolution Context: You are interviewing for a Data Scientist role in a consumer mark...