Interview Experiences

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

Share yours, earn XP

4514 stories

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

DatabricksSoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

Hit Counter Question, Rejected Over an Edge Case

The question was hit counter. This question isn't very clearly documented on the boards in terms of the exact requirements and follow-ups, so let me share what I remember as a reference. They started by giving 3 APIs and said I could ask clarifying questions: put(key, value) get(key) get_load() # this gets the QPS for get and put separately — I actually wrote two separate ones for each The requir…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
CommureSoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

HM Accused Me of Using AI

I applied online, and about a week later a recruiter reached out and set up a 30-minute meeting. It was pretty standard stuff — they just introduced the role. A bit more than a week after that, they reached out again: the next step was the HM interview. The HM's camera and mic both seemed to be having issues. The video was really blurry and the audio kept cutting in and out. He started by introdu…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
MicrosoftMachine Learning Engineer
Jun 2026

LeetCode Rounds Then a RAG System Design

Round 1 The first round was a classic array-processing problem: LeetCode 56 (Merge Intervals). Overall it wasn't too hard — mostly testing fundamentals. The core idea is to sort by interval start, then walk through and merge the overlapping ranges. What actually separates candidates is how "Pythonic" the code is and how you handle edge cases — things like sorting elegantly with a lambda, or handl…

Onsite0
SquarepointSoftware EngineerIntern
Jun 2026

Two Onsite Rounds, Rejected After a Two-Week Wait

The first round was an OA — I already posted about that separately, so check it out if you get the chance. After the OA I did two rounds of VO. Three rounds in total. Round 1: This interview was with a junior software engineer. He asked a few simple resume questions first — nothing to worry about, the interviewer just wants to understand your background. After that he asked some technical questio…

RejectedOnsite0
SnowflakeSoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

Rate Limiter and N-ary Tree Rounds, No DP Allowed

3 YOE, mid-level. After talking with the HM, there were two phone screens, and they were still pretty hard. Coding 1 Design a rate limiter. Just one rule Multiple rules Is it thread-safe, and how would you make it thread-safe (lock) If the request handler throws an exception for a given request, that request shouldn't be counted Don't drop the other rate-limited requests — when there's spare capa…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
AntraSoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

HR Chat, a 45-Minute Recorded OA, Then Java/Spring Trivia

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

Technical ScreenPremium0
AmazonSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Jun 2026

Changing Requirements in the LLD Round and a Distributed Cache Design

I've been applying to SDE-2 roles at MAANG-tier companies for the better part of a year, and it was rough going. I collected plenty of instant rejections right at the start, and that made it clear I had to prepare much harder. On the DSA side I mostly stuck to the LeetCode Premium MAANG checklist. My LLD prep came from Medium articles and YouTube channels. Reading past interview experiences for t…

Other0
UberSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jun 2026

Rejected by the First Team, Then Matched to Another

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

OfferOnsitePremium0
InstacartBackend EngineerSenior+
Jun 2026

A CodeSignal OA Built Entirely Around Claude Code

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

Online AssessmentPremium0
Scale AIResearch Scientist
Jun 2026

Four Onsites After a Brutal LLM Trivia Phone Screen

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

OfferOnsitePremium0
GoogleSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Jun 2026

Three EU Onsite Rounds, Then Stuck in Team Matching

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

In progressOnsiteXP0
MicrosoftSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Jun 2026

CoreAI Loop With an AI Coding Round, After 11 Loops in a Year

A bit of background first. I spent 6 years at a big fintech, and most of that time went into building an internal experimentation platform. I want to be honest about the niche angle, because I think people assume the opposite of what happened. I never planned to specialize. I sent applications everywhere, senior backend roles, anything that looked decent. Only when I reviewed my own funnel at the…

OfferOnsite0
NVIDIASoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

Two Unstructured Screens and No Follow-up

NVIDIA's interview process came with very little background information from the recruiter. I did not know how many rounds there would be or what each round would cover. They use Workday. I received an email saying they had selected me from the general applicant pool and asking me to fill in my availability online, but it still did not explain what the interview would cover. After the first round…

No responseTechnical Screen0
AmazonSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Jun 2026

OA, a Spam Folder Scare, and Four Back-to-Back Onsite Rounds

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

OnsitePremium0
BytedanceBackend EngineerNew Grad
Jun 2026

A Rapid-Fire Technical Screen Covering MySQL, Redis, SQL, and a Binary Tree Problem

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

OfferTechnical ScreenPremium0
SIG (Susquehanna)Software Engineer
Jun 2026

Full Loop from Phone Screens to a Philadelphia Onsite, Rejected for Experience Level

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

RejectedOnsitePremium0
Abnormal AISoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

Screening Round Built on a Live Security Events Codebase

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

Technical ScreenPremium0
AmazonMachine Learning EngineerSenior+
Jun 2026

Two OAs, a Five-Round Final Loop, and a Rejection with a Year-Long Freeze

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

RejectedOnsitePremium0
Hudson River TradingSoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

A C++ Fundamentals Gauntlet That Ended 10 Minutes Early

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

In progressTechnical ScreenPremium0
EtsyMachine Learning Engineer
Jun 2026

A Recruiter Call That Felt AI-Scripted

A premium story — unlock it to read the full loop.

HR ScreenPremium0

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