Interview Experiences

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

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4433 stories

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MicrosoftSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A Four-Round Onsite That Felt Like a Formality

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OnsiteXP0
GoogleMachine Learning Engineer
Feb 2026

Passed General Hiring, Failed the C++ Onsite Round

Timeline: HR reached out around 1/20, interviews started around 2/10 — 4 rounds total: AI/ML technical knowledge, 2 rounds of coding, and 1 round of BQ. AI/ML Round The interviewer pulled AI/ML related content from my resume and dug into it. This round felt pretty new — the interviewer even said it was their first time doing an AI/ML round, so the pace was relatively friendly and I felt like they…

In progressOnsite0
ConfluentSoftware EngineerSenior+
Feb 2026

Passed Both Codings, Failed Both System Designs

The technical screening round overall was pretty simple. They give you a function query signature and have you determine whether there's a registered function that matches it. Later on this expands to cases involving optional arguments and variable number of arguments. The onsite had four rounds total. The first coding round was to implement something like printing the last N lines of a file, alo…

RejectedOnsite0
MetaData Scientist
Feb 2026

Old Forum Questions With the Details Changed

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UberSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Four Onsite Rounds, Rejected After System Design

Did the OA first, two questions. The first was a somewhat convoluted binary search problem (kind of like an elevator problem), and the second was a server throughput problem solved with a heap (at the time I only managed to write a recursive solution). After that was the tech screen. The interviewer gave a lock combination problem — find the minimum number of steps to unlock it, basically BFS. Th…

RejectedOnsite0
PinterestMachine Learning EngineerSenior+
Feb 2026

Five Onsite Rounds, an Add-On Round, and a Scheduled Rejection Email

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Three Technical Rounds and Googleyness

First round: Technical interview Question: Add and search for words in a Trie. Because I had limited preparation time, I mainly reviewed common topics such as graph theory and dynamic programming, but I did not cover Tries. The problem was roughly about adding and searching for words. A Trie supports fast word lookup because of its tree structure, and the return behavior needed attention. I told…

Technical Screen0
WaymoSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

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

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Technical ScreenXP0
Palo Alto NetworksSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Five Onsite Rounds, Rejected via Candidate Portal

I interviewed with them at the end of last month. First I talked with the HM, and a week later I went onsite at the company. There were five rounds total, 45 minutes each. Every round started with questions about past projects, then a lot of content around k8s, networking, and cloud. Coding included typical LeetCode-style problems, plus one simple BFS. Design included a scheduler and metrics moni…

RejectedOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A Tough Phone Screen With LC 560 and a City-Grid Islands Twist

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Technical ScreenXP0
UpstartData ScientistSenior+
Feb 2026

A Statistics-Heavy Hiring Manager Screen

In Q4 2024, a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn about a staff DS role at their company. After a short conversation, we scheduled a one-hour phone screen with the hiring manager (an ML Applications Director). After a brief self-introduction, we moved into the first part. He asked me to walk him through a project where I needed to measure impact but couldn't launch an experiment. I described…

In progressTechnical Screen0
TemuSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Five Rounds, Light on Coding, Heavy on Cross-Checking

Giving back to the forum. After getting hit with a layoff at the end of the year, I interviewed with Temu's North America team early this year. The whole process was 3 rounds of coding + 1 round of behavioral questions with a director/VP + 1 round with HRBP: Round 1: 496. Next Greater Element I Round 2 I don't remember clearly, but it was also a fairly standard LeetCode medium. Round 3 gave a lis…

Onsite0
MetaData Scientist
Feb 2026

SQL and Product Questions Both Built Around Ads Pixel

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In progressTechnical ScreenXP0
OracleApplied ScientistIntern
Feb 2026

Two Rounds, But Doubts About a Research-Only Role

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Technical ScreenXP0
BlackRockData Engineer
Feb 2026

A HackerRank Screen With No SQL at All

After I got unlucky and was laid off from my previous company, I wiped my tears and quickly opened up LinkedIn. Turns out I should have done LeetCode before opening LinkedIn. 🐶 This company was really strange. At first a recruiter reached out to me about an interview, but when I applied on the company website I got instantly rejected. The next day the recruiter called me and said it was just a lo…

Technical Screen0
UberData ScientistIntern
Feb 2026

Rejected in Both Full-Time and Intern Loops

I got rejected for both their full-time and intern positions — the intern process was rejected after the second (final) round, and the full-time process was rejected after the first round. I don't know what the interviewers were looking for; I felt like I answered every question, and communication went smoothly enough. For the full-time role, the first round jumped straight into a case study afte…

RejectedOnsite0
Jane StreetSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Two Onsite Rounds and a Coding Trap

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
LinkedInMachine Learning EngineerSenior+
Feb 2026

Phone Screen Plus a Five-Round Onsite Full of Probability Questions

The phone screen was 1hr, there was a lot of content, but it was all questions that had already shown up in other interview reports. Coding - biased coin Input: A method getRandom01Biased() that generates a random integer in [0, 1], where 0 is generated with probability p and 1 is generated with probability (1-p) Output: A method getRandom06Uniform() that generates a random integer in [0, 6] with…

Onsite0
LinkedInData Scientist
Feb 2026

Every Stats Question From the Technical Screen

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Technical ScreenXP0
TubitvSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Passed the Coding Rounds, Then Rejected After a Mandarin-Only Screen for a US Role

I mass-applied online in March, and this is how the interview came about. The process was: Round one: coding — a log parser question, identical to one that's already been posted on the forum. I didn't actually get it running successfully during the interview, but the interviewer said at the end that I was on the right track. I ended up passing this round anyway. Round two: "cache design." This wa…

RejectedTechnical 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.

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