Interview Experiences

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

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7 stories

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WaymoSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

A Simulation Design Round After a Recruiter Reassurance

Coding: 317. The second problem was traversing a graph with DFS, fairly simple. There was a follow-up: come up with an algorithm to prove your answer is correct. A strange follow-up. Behavioral: Very standard. A project I'm proud of, how to handle priorities, things like that. System design: This was the first round of the interview. What a disastrous start. I was interviewing with the simulation…

RejectedOnsite0
WaymoSoftware Engineer
Jul 2026

45-Minute Coding Phone Screen, Rejected for Slow Code

I had the Waymo phone screen at the end of August. It was 45 minutes of pure coding. I had spent about half a month grinding problems after work. Someone on the forum said they don't have a question bank, so I didn't really try to guess which questions would come up, figuring I would just perform normally. The problem wasn't actually hard. You're given a list of events in the format [open or end,…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
WaymoSoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

Navigation Constraints and Mapping Systems

The author lists a Waymo phone screen followed by onsite system-design and coding interviews. The screen involved a robot moving in four directions, returning to its starting point, and avoiding obstacles. The design discussion asked about a vehicle fleet collecting map information. One onsite coding task matched dictionary words against input containing repeated letters. Another used a map with…

Onsite0
WaymoSoftware Engineer
May 2026

Cleared Every Round, Then Told They Wanted Someone More Senior

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
WaymoSoftware Engineer
May 2026

A Four-Round Onsite With Two System Design Problems

A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn. Apparently the company's valuation went up 4x earlier this year, so they've been hiring a lot lately. The onsite was four rounds total. Round 1: System Design Design a Matchmaking Service: Join matchmaking queue Cancel matchmaking request Match two compatible players Notify both players when a match is found Handle disconnects and expired requests Round…

Onsite0
WaymoSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

Phone Screen Passed, Rejected After a Four-Round Virtual Onsite

I got rejected after the full Waymo loop. Posting this so the people after me can avoid the same landmine. Before the interview I looked through the forum and there seemed to be hardly any Waymo reports. After finishing, I do feel there is no fixed question bank, it all depends on what the interviewer feels like asking that day. The phone screen was a variant of the number-of-islands problem, and…

RejectedOnsite0
WaymoSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A 45-Minute BFS Shortest-Path Screen With a Noisy Background

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

Technical ScreenXP0

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