Interview Experiences

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

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41 stories

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RipplingSoftware Engineer
Oct 2026

Pluggable Logger Phone Screen, Rejected After Using Cursor

Ran into a new question. / Your task is to build a simple logging tool for an application. The core requirement is that the Logger should support several different log handlers, and it should be easy to add new log handlers in the future without modifying the core Logger class. Implement these first: Filter handler: before printing, remove all occurrences of a (configurable) string from the log m…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
RipplingSoftware EngineerSenior+
Oct 2026

Phone Screen Where You Choose Whether to Use AI

This was the first technical interview after HR screen. The interviewer asked me do I want to use AI or not, and said if I picked AI I would get a harder question. I chose not to use AI and this was the question I needed to solve in 45 minutes: Design a delivery-driver payment system add_driver(driver_id, usd_hourly_rate) — register a driver with an hourly rate. record_delivery(driver_id, start_t…

Technical Screen1
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Oct 2026

Delivery Cost Calculation with an AI Assistant

I did the Rippling technical screen last week. It was online coding with an AI assistant. The problem was the Delivery Cost calculation that has shown up here before (the calculate_compensation version). Summary of the problem: a food delivery platform pays drivers per delivery, and the cost is duration × that driver's hourly rate. You implement a dashboard system whose core is a single number, t…

In progressTechnical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

Task Scheduler Phone Screen, AI Optional, Rejected

Sharing my Rippling phone screen. Phone screen, first round (coding): The problem was something like a task scheduler, but the requirements were very complicated and there were a huge number of conditions. It's not hard, but the details explode. Roughly: Tasks have dependencies, and when outputting I had to output the dependency first and then the task itself. Tasks have various attribute require…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Added Sep 2026

Article Vote Tracker

Got the Article Vote Tracker question. Part 1 involved adding articles, recording up/down votes, detecting vote flips, and returning the last 3 unique flipped articles. The follow-up asked how to handle a very large flip history. The key optimization is to maintain only the last 3 unique flipped article IDs per user instead of storing the complete history. I completed Part 1 but did not proceed t…

Technical Screen1
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

One-Hour AI-Assisted Phone Screen on Camel Cards

The phone screen was one hour, and the question was one of the ones people have already posted about: Camel Cards. I picked the option where the AI helps write the code. A hand has 5 cards, and there are 7 hand types in total, each with its own weight, ordered from strongest to weakest. Part one: first I read the problem and made clear that I would create 1 abstract class HandType and 1 class Han…

In progressTechnical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

Delivery Billing and Rounding Decisions

The author describes a Rippling recruiter screen followed by an hour-long HackerRank technical interview where AI assistance was encouraged. The recruiter discussed project impact, responsibilities, motivation, AI-tool use, and practical job requirements. The coding exercise tracked delivery costs using driver rates that could change over time. Important requirements included ignoring duplicate d…

Technical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

Explaining an Expense Rules Engine Before Using AI

The author reports passing Rippling’s first AI-assisted interview, which used an expense-policy evaluation exercise. Their approach began with discussing requirements and edge cases, then outlining classes and basic functions while explaining design decisions. This initial work took more than 20 minutes. Only afterward did the author ask AI to complete implementation details within that structure…

Technical Screen0
RipplingBackend EngineerSenior+
Sep 2026

An Onsite Where the Coding Round Expected You to Use AI

Interviewed for a Senior backend role in July. Round 1 — Coding (60 min), AI use explicitly allowed The interviewer (Data Cloud team) opened by saying directly: "The environment has an AI assistant set up, use it the way you normally would at work, just don't let it make every decision for you." Problem: task scheduler. You're given a batch of tasks (description / due date / priority / completed…

RejectedOnsite0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

A News Aggregator Design Followed by a Fast Rejection

The system design phone screen used the news aggregator problem from the question bank, and all of the questions were standard. I had prepared this problem carefully, so I thought my answer went well. I also answered every follow-up, and the interviewer seemed satisfied with my responses. Even so, I received a rejection about ten minutes after the interview ended. The result and its timing left m…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

AI-Assisted Logger Handler Screen on HackerRank

I used my own AI + IDE. The problem was on HackerRank and I shared my screen the whole time. I got the logger problem. Part 1 A logger has handlers. Each handler is independent. Handler types: Remove all occurrences of a configured string, then print. Truncate to N characters, then print. Uppercase the whole message, then print. Store the message in an internal array without printing. Discuss the…

Technical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

An AI Coding Edge Case with Filtered Parent Tasks

This AI coding phone screen ended in rejection. Sending the problem directly to an AI could miss an important edge case: if a parent is filtered out, its child task should be filtered out as well. One test case for that behavior was: The fourth task was unrelated and should remain in the result, while the parent and grandchild should not appear because the grandparent was filtered.

RejectedTechnical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Jul 2026

Onsite AI Coding Round with Live Prompting

Recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn. They scheduled a phone screen first — system design, on a news aggregation system. The interviewer was very nice. A week later they told me I'd passed. Then they scheduled a chat with the hiring manager about my project. A week later they told me I'd passed that one too. Onsite was two days, three rounds. System design: they asked me to design a hotel syst…

Onsite0
RipplingSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jul 2026

30-Minute Recruiter Chat, Rejected the Next Day

I got a reach-out email from their recruiter and we scheduled a 30-minute quick chat. The HR person was 5 minutes late, but it was no big deal, I've seen this a lot. After she joined she said she wouldn't turn her camera on, and told me I didn't have to either. Then we got started. Intro and work experience She first asked me to introduce myself, and I went over my work history. Then she asked me…

RejectedHR Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Rippling Software Engineer interview experience: financial precision coding

The coding challenge was the familiar driver-delivery system problem, and I had heard that Rippling used a relatively small pool of widely discussed questions. Financial representation mattered a great deal during the implementation. I had to justify using a particular numeric type instead of floating point. A copilot-style assistant inserted changes that did not meet the precision requirements.…

Technical Screen0
RipplingSoftware EngineerIntern
Reported Jul 2026

Rippling Software Engineer interview: intern assessment in progress

I was interviewing for a Full Stack Software Engineer Intern role, rather than the general software-engineer track. Early on, I completed a HackerRank assessment with 4 multiple-choice questions and 3 coding questions. Recruiting then invited me to a coding and algorithms interview with an engineer. Their communication was clear and professional, and I knew what came next. When I described the ex…

In progressOnline Assessment0
RipplingAccount Executive
Reported Jul 2026

Rippling Account Executive interview: advanced process followed by recruiter silence

My process began normally and I made it through several rounds. Near the end, it became clear they were not moving forward. The recruiter said they would contact me that day or the next, then I heard nothing. After multiple interviews and getting fairly far, the lack of follow-through bothered me. I can understand that an early process may be slow or ambiguous, but this silence came after I was a…

No responseOther0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Rippling Software Engineer interview: a dismissive phone screen

I applied online, and a recruiter contacted me a couple of weeks later to arrange a technical phone screen. The process went badly quickly because the interviewer seemed disengaged from the start. I was interrupted almost immediately during my introduction and could not finish it. The interviewer moved to the coding question and kept their camera off for most of the session. I still solved the pr…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Rippling Software Engineer interview: referral and familiar questions

I came through a referral, and the initial call felt conversational rather than gatekeeping. Within about two and a half weeks, I had a technical coding interview and a behavioral interview. The coding questions asked for the first non-repeating character in a string and validation of parentheses. I had practiced something similar on PracHub just beforehand, so the patterns felt familiar and help…

Offer0
RipplingSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Rippling Software Engineer interview: CodePair rules and a quick recruiter turnaround

I applied online, completed an online assessment, and then passed it. Recruiting invited me to schedule the next interviews. The process was organized, with a scheduling email that included prep resources: an overview video and links to an official interview kit. My first scheduled round was a one-hour technical interview with a Software Engineer II on CodePair. The session was recorded for train…

Online Assessment0

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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