Interview Experiences

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

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4 stories

Likes earn the author +10 XP for the first 3 likes each day

HarveyAI Agent
Aug 2026

Three Rounds and a Frustrating Empty Office

It was a surreal onsite experience. I had practiced the phone-screen problem many times. It was the Google Sheets problem, and I finished it immediately. The recruiter told me about an hour later that I had passed, then arranged the onsite. There were three rounds. For system design, I was asked to design an agent that scores a file according to a set of rules and labels it qualified, acceptable,…

RejectedOnsite0
HarveySoftware Engineer
May 2026

Great Onsite, Rough Virtual Screen, Lost to Another Candidate

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

RejectedOnsiteXP0
HarveySoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

A File System Question and a Hard-to-Follow Interviewer

The file system question from 1point3acres. The writeup is here: a question that hasn't shown up on the forum before, basically a file system where you implement two functions: addFile(String path) — given a string like "path/to/somewhere/file.txt", store this file getFile(String path) — input "path/to/somewhere" returns file.text, input "path/to" returns the "somewhere" folder There wasn't reall…

Technical Screen0
HarveySoftware Engineer
Jul 2025

A File System Design Screen With a Confusing Interviewer

The file system question that's been going around the forum. Here's my report. Similar to a file system — implement two functions: addFile(String path): given a string like "path/to/somewhere/file.txt", store this file. getFile(String path): given "path/to/somewhere", return the content of file.txt; given "path/to", return the folder "somewhere". There wasn't much of a self-introduction, we jumpe…

In progressTechnical 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.

Share your experience to earn XP