This was a mass application, general backend. Carvana is a used-car sales app based in Tempe. I was first matched to a team doing finance.
Round 1
A problem from a coding-practice site — the problem name was written in disguised characters so I can't tell exactly what it was — plus a behavioral question. I only wrote out the conversion for numbers under 999; for the ≥1000 case I just explained it verbally and wasn't asked to code it. The behavioral question was about how I use AI at work. This team only had junior openings, so after the interview they told me I was overqualified and moved me over to the inventory team.
The new team ran 4 rounds in one day, mostly conversational.
Round 1
With the director, 30 minutes, entirely standard behavioral questions — it felt like they were looking the questions up on the spot. Asked things like "Why Carvana" and how I'd handle conflict with a manager.
Round 2
With 2 tech leads, 30 minutes, also entirely behavioral questions plus chatting.
Round 3
With 2 seniors, 1 hour — half an hour of chatting, then designing the backend service for a time-clock/check-in system. The requirement was to track clock-in duration and calculate pay based on that duration. The follow-up was how to optimize for high TPS, and how I'd sync clock-in data from another DB.
Round 4
With a PM, 30 minutes, purely conversational — asked how I'd handle a conflict scenario with a PM, and to explain a technical term to a PM in plain language.
The questions were all pretty simple, and the conversations went well. The day after the onsite, I got a rejection email.
Discussion
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