Interview Experiences

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

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29 stories

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PinterestData Scientist
Feb 2026

Onsite Loop Interrupted by Recruiter Conflict, Two Rounds Rescheduled

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In progressOnsiteXP0
PinterestData Scientist
Jan 2026

Five Rounds Interrupted by a Recruiter Conflict

I had a really bizarre interview experience. Pinterest VO: it was originally supposed to be 5 rounds back-to-back in one day, but on the day of the interview the recruiter said there was a conflict. I only did three rounds, and the other two got rescheduled to two days later. Round 1: use case / analytical system design. The interviewer was a DS manager. He laid out a simple problem statement and…

Onsite0
PinterestMachine Learning EngineerSenior+
Jan 2026

Two ML Design Rounds, Two Buggy Codings, and a Gut Feeling of Rejection

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OnsiteXP0
PinterestData Scientist
Jan 2026

A Virtual Onsite Split Across Two Days

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OnsiteXP0
PinterestSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jan 2026

A Debt-Settlement Variant of LC 465

Position: SR. Software Engineer A one-hour phone screen, and the question was a variant of LC 465 — it felt like it needed the accounting concept of settling balances, and if you hadn't seen something like this before you probably couldn't have gotten it. The problem was roughly this: a group of friends goes on a trip, and you're given a list of transactions. Each one has a payer, an amount, and…

Technical Screen0
PinterestData Scientist
Oct 2025

L5 Loop with Five Onsite Rounds and a BQ-Heavy XFN

Let me start with the overall timeline. I interviewed for a level 5 position: one round of phone screen, five rounds of onsite, and two rounds of team matching. The whole process took about a month, and after that I waited 2-3 days for the offer. Here's the general picture of how it went. Overall the interview had some real difficulty to it. The technical part was SQL plus Python. The SQL was on…

OfferOnsite0
PinterestData ScientistSenior+
Oct 2025

Five-Round Onsite Loop Ends in Rejection

Fresh rejection writeup — I just did a virtual onsite for a Staff Data Scientist role at Pinterest. (1) Coding: SQL joining three tables to calculate, for each country, the category with the most impressions, and to calculate the heavy user rate (heavy user defined as active at least 4 days in the past week, with at least 3 features used on one of those days). There was also a simple Python quest…

RejectedOnsite0
PinterestSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Three Coding Rounds, One Rough System Design

Overall it wasn't too hard — three coding rounds, one system design round, and one BQ round — but the system design round was really brutal... Here are the details: Coding: I'd never seen this one before. They give you a pre-written class that has a next() function — each call returns a string, roughly like this: "one//ntw", "o//n", "three//nfour", "//nfi", "ve" You're supposed to write your own…

Onsite0
PinterestData Scientist
Aug 2025

A Restaurant Reservation Coding Question and a Deep-Dive Stats Round

I felt like the whole interview experience was really good — the interviewers listened carefully, and there wasn't that "gotta beat you down" attitude some interviewers have. Two of the rounds felt somewhat difficult to me. coding: Not counting the resume intro, small talk, and the interviewer showing up late, the actual working time was about 30 minutes. The question involved a nested dictionary…

Onsite0

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