DoorDash Software Engineer Interview Experience — Full Onsite Loop, Then Grilled About Using AI More

DoorDash's full loop. I felt like their question bank isn't very big — pretty much everything is covered by write-ups here already. Specifically, the phone screen with the interviewer: dasher_pay. Same problem that's already been posted here, so pay attention to handling the input datetime. I used a few states to control the order's status. I forgot the follow-up, but again, the situations posted here already covered it. They also asked how I'd turn it into an API, which was basically just adding retry and failure handling.

Passed that, then got scheduled for the onsite.

1. Debug round with one of the interviewers: same as what's already been posted here — the "pick dasher" problem, pretty standard as far as these go. No real traps, just watch out for index out of bounds. Wrapped it up in 20 minutes, then we just chatted for the rest of the time. The interviewer was chill and easy to talk to.

2. System design round, 75 minutes, with another interviewer:
   First they deep-dived into a design from my resume. Asked very detailed, pressure-test style questions, and I had to draw it out. That part took about 25 minutes. Better to prep for this part ahead of time.
   System design prompt: design a notification system that needs to handle alerts, email notifications, SMS, etc. It receives alerts from other systems and notifies all subscribers.
   I hadn't seen this exact question in my prep from the forum, so I panicked. Got stuck on the API design for a while, and the interviewer kept pushing follow-ups. Rushed through a high-level design at the end, deep-dived into one point, and ran out of time. I think this is the round I got dinged on.
   My first system design interview felt pretty different from how I'd practiced it. Under the pressure of the follow-up questions, I got less and less confident the more I talked, and spent very little time actually thinking before I spoke. By the end my mind just went blank, lol.

3. Hiring manager round:
   Talked about my resume, behavioral questions. Seems like they asked about handling conflict with teammates, and a proud project. Not sure about the feedback — hiring managers are all smiling tigers anyway. I noticed I have this problem where the longer I talk, the more likely I am to just say what's actually true and end up exposing problems from my own projects or work. Not sure what the hiring manager made of that.

After the interview I wasn't holding out much hope. Two weeks later, the rejection letter came. Every onsite leaves me feeling burned out — still gotta grind more, I'm just not good enough yet.

Hope this helps everyone out there. The job market is rough, let's keep pushing through together!

Addendum (2026-03-07 05:17 +08:00):
Had to laugh — the hiring manager's manager pulled me back in to grill me about why I wasn't using AI more? Once they decided I wasn't using it enough, they just lost interest in following up with me...
Whatever. If I were happy with my current job, why would I even be job hunting.