Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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4 stories

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DecagonSoftware Engineer
Oct 2026

A "System Design" Screen That Was Really Data Modeling

When they scheduled the interview they said it would be one System Design round, but the interviewer said right at the start that scalability was not a consideration and the focus was more on designing the data model. I think it felt a bit like an OOD design round. Design a rule management system that allows customers to configure behavioral rules for AI agents, such as “Be polite,” “Keep respons…

Technical Screen0
DecagonSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

Rejected After the Onsite Culture Screen

First was a hiring call with Decagon. Then a technical phone screen, which was a shopping cart problem with redo and undo. Next was a system design phone screen, where I had to design security for the Decagon chatbot. The onsite was a culture screen. They asked pretty generic questions like tell me about a project, tell me about a project that went wrong, and how do you use AI. I was rejected imm…

RejectedOnsite0
DecagonSoftware Engineer
Jul 2026

Shopping Cart Versioning, Then Rejected on Tic-Tac-Toe

Round 1 was the shopping cart problem that other interview reports have also mentioned, but part 2 seemed a bit different. You're building a shopping cart for a cooking app. Users can add recipes to their cart. Each recipe has a list of ingredients (e.g., Chicken, Garlic). When the same ingredient appears across multiple recipes, the total count qualifies for bulk discounts. Part 1 was the same a…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
DecagonSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

CSAT Tracker Question on the Phone Screen

I interviewed for 45 minutes and got one question. I'd solved it before, but I still wrote two bugs. Luckily I caught and fixed both while testing, and it passed in the end. Thanks to the interviewer for going easy on me. The question was the one that comes up most often for the phone screen: design a customer satisfaction (CSAT) tracking class. Scores are fixed in the range 1 to 5. __init__(self…

Technical Screen0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

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