Pinterest Interview Questions
Practice 145 real Pinterest interview questions for 2026. Covers all top categories — Coding & Algorithms, Data Manipulation (SQL/Python), Analytics & Experimentation, Machine Learning, System Design — across Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, and Data Analyst roles. Real questions from actual interviews with detailed solutions. This collection leans hard on coding and algorithm problems for SWE candidates while giving equivalent weight to experiment design, SQL/Python analytics, and model evaluation for data roles, making it a focused resource for interview preparation for screens, virtual onsites, and take-home assignments. Expect interviews to evaluate algorithmic thinking, production design, experimental rigor, and clear data storytelling. For Data Scientists you’ll see carousel and billboard lift evaluation, weighted/random-sampling implementations, numpy/pandas and SQL analytics on category and video-time metrics, and survey-balance diagnostics. Software Engineers face prefix-matching, catalog update pipelines, sparse-matrix ops, grid/graph puzzles, and ads event reporting or blob storage design. Machine Learning Engineers get pin-search and recommender design, Naive Bayes/bagging implementation, hyperparameter generation, and sampling-by-score problems. Data Analysts encounter cohort and cancellation/rebooking metric questions. Prepare with timed coding drills, end-to-end A/B case studies, polished Python/SQL practice, and concise STAR stories for behavioral rounds.
"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."
Implement np.random.choice
This question evaluates understanding of random sampling algorithms, probability distributions (uniform and weighted), handling of weights and edge-ca...
Compute reachable cells for a cleaning robot
This question evaluates understanding of graph traversal, state-space modeling, and scalability when computing reachable cells on a 2D grid under 8-di...
Assign Pins to Shortest Columns
You are given a list of pins, where each pin has a height, and a fixed number of columns in a masonry-style layout. Process the pins in their original...
Determine equality of arbitrarily nested sets
Implement a function that determines whether two arbitrarily nested sets are equal. Sets are unordered and contain no duplicates; elements can be inte...
Solve set equality and ad log top‑K
Problem Set (Coding) 1) Check whether two sets are equal You are given two integer arrays A and B that represent sets, except they may contain duplica...
Find First Prefix-Matching Word
This question evaluates proficiency in string processing and prefix-matching within arrays, testing the ability to identify the first occurrence and h...
Write SQL and pandas for shopping events
Use the schema and sample data below to answer SQL and pandas tasks. Treat 'today' as 2025-09-01. Schema users(user_id INT, country STRING) pins(pin_i...
Find top video category by average time
You are given a pandas DataFrame 'pins' with columns [pin_id:int, category_id:int, time_spent_sec:float, pin_format:string] and a dict 'category_map' ...
Design a pin search engine
Design a Pinterest-style pin search engine with hybrid candidate generation, dual-encoder retrieval, multimodal ranking, pairwise/listwise losses, off...
Solve Four Interview Coding Problems
This question set evaluates algorithmic problem-solving skills including graph traversal and itinerary reconstruction, time-sorted search and binary s...
Solve Two Grid Search Problems
This question evaluates proficiency in graph traversal on grids, specifically competencies in identifying connected components and modeling propagatio...
Write Queries for Pinterest Engagement Tasks
You are given several data-manipulation tasks based on Pinterest-style product data. Use UTC for all timestamp-to-date conversions unless stated other...
Generate all hyperparameter combinations
This question evaluates competence in combinatorial enumeration and manipulation of data structures for generating hyperparameter configurations, test...
Implement stream line reader and settle balances
Part 1: Streaming line reader from chunked source You are given an existing class ChunkSource with a method nextChunk() that returns the next piece of...
Support room moves and query top-k fastest
This question evaluates understanding of dynamic data structure design and ordering semantics, specifically maintaining per-room FIFO arrival order, c...
Implement trie-based autocomplete
This question evaluates understanding and implementation of trie data structures for prefix-based retrieval, testing competencies in string algorithms...
Implement sparse matrix storage, addition, and multiplication
This question evaluates understanding of sparse matrix representations, algorithmic efficiency for linear algebra operations, and the ability to manip...
Reconstruct route from unordered travel tickets
This question evaluates understanding of directed graph concepts and sequence reconstruction, assessing the ability to reason about ordered relationsh...
Implement string-based rounding without floats
Coding You are not allowed to parse the input into a built-in floating type (to avoid overflow and precision issues). Work directly on strings. 1) Imp...
Design Data Structure for Sparse Matrices Operations
Scenario Analytics engine stores extremely sparse numeric matrices. Question Design a data structure to store two sparse matrices and implement print(...