TikTok Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience — Two Completed Problems and Unexpected IDE Timeouts

TikTok·Software Engineer·Aug 2026
Technical ScreenSenior+Rejectedmedium

Someone contacted me through a professional network, so I treated the interview as practice and a chance to see the market. The two questions were LeetCode 159 and 93.

I stumbled a little on the problems, but I did write both solutions. Their Python coding IDE was very bad. It timed out several times, which made me think I had written an infinite loop, but the environment was actually just running slowly.

The result showed a rejection the next day. I did not understand it because I had written both answers by hand, explained my reasoning, produced code that compiled, and passed every test case they provided. Still, I had entered with a practice mindset, so I could not blame anyone too much. I am sharing this as a reference point for others.

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Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
TikTok
Role
Software Engineer
Level
Senior+
Rounds
Technical Screen
Outcome
Rejected
Difficulty
medium
Interview date
Aug 2026
Questions from this interview
2 questions

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