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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StripeNew Grad
Oct 2025

First-Round Onsite With Two Invoice-Matching Problems

We started with mutual self-introductions — no deep dive into past projects. Then came two coding problems based on one scenario; the problem statements and the amount of code weren't small. At the end I got to ask the interviewer some questions. Q1: Given an invoice ID embedded in a payment memo, match it against the invoice list and output the result. My approach: parse the payment string to pu…

In progressOnsite0
DiscordBackend EngineerSenior+
Oct 2025

A Redis Curveball on the Etcd Round

Sharing a Discord interview experience — I interviewed for a senior backend position. I really like Discord, I use it pretty much every day for gaming, so I do have a soft spot for this company. Overall impression The interviewers had mostly been at the company for 6-10+ years, very professional, technically strong, and the interview experience was great — it basically felt like solving a problem…

Onsite0
OpenAIMachine Learning Engineer
Oct 2025

A Simulation-Style Infectious Disease Question

I interviewed onsite for a completely new question I had never seen before -- five parts in total, and I only managed to finish three, so I definitely failed this round. The prompt was described as "simulation style." Beforehand, people on the forum said it would probably be GPU-related, so that is what I prepared for, but it turned out to be about infectious disease instead. Posting this so othe…

RejectedOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Rejected After an Onsite Where the Interviewer Argued Over Big-O Notation

I just got told yesterday that I didn't pass, so I'm reporting back to the forum — and venting a little while I'm at it. Phone: a coding round. OA: a banking-system themed problem. I only passed two rounds, but was told I'd still move on to the onsite. Virtual onsite: System design: the same question as another post I'd already seen on the forum. AI coding: a card game — design a strategy to guar…

RejectedOnsite0
Nash AIBackend Engineer
Oct 2025

Minesweeper, a Delivery-Tracking Design, and a 4-Hour Take-home

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
IntuitData Scientist
Oct 2025

TurboTax Take-Home, Growth Team Onsite, and a Slow Recruiter Process

First there was a TurboTax home assignment, then a 45-minute presentation plus Q&A. In this part they ask about the recommendations you make based on the data, whether your assumptions are reasonable, and what other data you could look at. I remember there being a question like that, and I didn't have a good answer at the time. The task was predicting whether tax filing succeeds or not, and there…

Onsite0
Morgan StanleyQuant (Strats)
Oct 2025

Three Back-to-Back Technical Rounds on Options Pricing and Algorithms

Morgan Stanley Quant (Strats). There are 2-3 rounds total, and I just finished round two. I'm not sure if round three will be a superday or just a chat with the MD. Round one was a straightforward LeetCode-style question, the same for everyone regardless of team — 30 minutes of live coding. Not hard, it tested a greedy algorithm, and once you saw it was greedy it clicked instantly. Round two was…

In progressTechnical Screen0
Point72Data ScientistIntern
Oct 2025

OA Cut to 50 Minutes for Five Questions

There's not much information about this internship role on the forum, and what's there is outdated, so today I'll share my OA to help others out (and also help myself next year when I'm looking for full-time). The OA got a lot harder this year — it used to be three questions in one hour, but now it's five questions in 50 minutes. The questions were two easy SQL questions, two easy-medium LeetCode…

RejectedOnline Assessment0
IllumioSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Kafka Deep Dives, Rejected After the VP Round

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

Four Onsite Rounds, One AR Question Asked Twice

Behavior round: challenging project, diversity, differences in working style, learning. The interviewer was really nice and easy to talk to. AR (Ad Recommendation) round: talking with the interviewer felt really comfortable, and they were very good at controlling the pace of the interview. SQL round: Active Ad Revenue based on different creation source. The question changed a little from what I w…

Onsite0
OpenAIMachine Learning Engineer
Oct 2025

Onsite Dragged to November, Then Rejected

I applied in June, and they didn't reach out to schedule an interview until September. The phone screen went well, and they quickly set up the onsite (VO), but from there the scheduling turned into a mess — they kept changing the time on me, over and over, and it dragged all the way to November before I finished every round. Two weeks after that, I got the rejection. I won't go into every detail,…

RejectedOnsite0
LinkedInSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Phone Screen to Full Onsite, Rejected on Code Quality

Applied in a big October application wave. Interviewing for a junior role. Phone screen: 1 hour, and we spent the first 15 minutes just chatting about my resume. Question 1 was a variant of a problem I only had a coded name for — it started with just () parentheses, then the follow-up expanded it to three different types of brackets. We discussed a stack-based approach versus one using a counter,…

RejectedOnsite0
BlockSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Passed the Screen, Then Lost the Headcount

It seems like at this company the hiring manager only looks at your resume after you pass the phone screen. First I talked with the recruiter, and then right there on that call they said they'd schedule the phone screen — a one-hour coding round. The interviewer didn't waste any time either. After about 5 minutes of introducing ourselves, we went straight into the problem. It was written on Coder…

In progressTechnical Screen0
GoogleData Scientist
Oct 2025

A Two-Part Invoice Matching Coding Screen

We started with quick self-introductions on both sides — no deep-dive project questions. Then came two coding questions built around a single scenario; the questions and the amount of code involved weren't trivial. At the end I got to ask the interviewer some questions. Q1: Given the invoice ID inside a payment's memo, find the matching invoice in the invoice list and output the result. My approa…

Technical Screen0
AnthropicSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

A Full Onsite Loop That Ended in Rejection

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
DatabricksSoftware EngineerSenior+
Oct 2025

Rejected Same Day Despite a Smooth BFS Solution

The interviewer was a Senior engineer, and he was 5 minutes late. He started off explaining what his team does — since this was a direct match on background with an infra team, I spent about 3-5 minutes introducing what I used to do on my previous team, and he asked me one question about it. After this intro segment, there was about 45 minutes left. The actual interview started. It was a known qu…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
RobloxData ScientistIntern
Oct 2025

A Four-Part OA With Two Weird Simulation Games

Roblox's DS summer intern OA has 4 parts: the first two parts are games played on Roblox's own platform, the third part is basically behavioral multiple choice, and the fourth part is coding. Part 1: the car-building game, 25 minutes total; 2 sections, 13 minutes each, and each section has two different terrains. You need to equip a car with different parts to get it through both terrains, and th…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Four Onsite Rounds With an AI Coding Segment

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OnsiteXP0
StripeData Scientist
Oct 2025

Rejected After the Case Study Round on a Lending Product

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RejectedTechnical ScreenXP0
CVS HealthData Scientist
Oct 2025

HR Screen Followed by a 45-Minute SQL, Pandas, and LLM/ML Screen

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In progressTechnical 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.

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