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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MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

SQL and Product Sense in a 45-Minute Screen

Giving back to the forum. I scheduled this interview in late March for early April. The interviewer was very nice and patiently gave me hints — maybe a few too many hints, so I'm not sure how it'll turn out. I didn't hear anything within 24 hours, so I'm probably out, but I don't think I could have done any better. While it's still fresh in my memory, let me share it with everyone. Round 1: Techn…

Technical Screen0
ShopifyData Scientist
Oct 2025

A Long Process Built Around CEO Philosophy and a No-Calculator Math OA

Mainly want to complain about how bad the experience was with Shopify's interview process. TL;DR: it dragged on forever and had way too many rounds. Recruiter call -- they reached out to me first and spent the call selling their own company, selling the CEO's philosophy. I don't know if they genuinely believe in these lofty ideals or what, but it came across as unfriendly and really nitpicky. The…

HR Screen0
MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

Three-Day Onsite, Rejected Over Shallow Stats Depth

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

SQL, Behavioral, and Analytics Execution Rounds

The behavioral round was also some classic questions. For this round I also prepared one example for each question mentioned on the forum — when I got something similar in the actual interview I just tweaked the answer slightly. For the result, it helps to state it clearly, so the interviewer understands exactly how your action solved the problem well and got a good outcome. The questions I got w…

Onsite0
CVS HealthData Scientist
Oct 2025

Two Technical Rounds Then a Final Panel

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OnsiteXP0
CVS HealthData Scientist
Oct 2025

Four Rounds, a Lawyer's Red Flag, and a Runner-Up Finish

On 2/5 I got an invite from the recruiter for a team video interview, and we picked 2/7 for the time. We talked about my resume and work history. She asked some basic questions about my status. She kept saying they were hiring urgently, so we scheduled the tech interview for 2/12, and along the way she went over the topics and content for it. That's when I learned it would be a tech interview foc…

RejectedOnsite0
SnowflakeData Scientist
Oct 2025

Built a Streamlit App Instead of LeetCode, Rejected After Onsite

Got in through a referral. Hiring Manager interview — the whole thing was just chatting about my project, it went pretty well, and I moved forward to the next round. Technical round — I'd read a report on the forum saying they usually ask 3sum and some fairly hard SQL, but it turned out to be building a small data application with Streamlit instead. It really did require partition SQL, plus being…

RejectedOnsite0
AmazonBusiness Intelligence Engineer
Oct 2025

SQL, Analytics Case Studies, and Two Straight Rounds of Behavioral Questions

Amazon BIE final round interview summary Round 1: Visualization: Introduce the dashboard you built, explain which visualizations you used, and explain why you chose them. Analytical: Suppose you're the manager of a delivery station. In the past you manually assigned packages to delivery drivers, and now you need to build a model that automatically assigns package quantities. What data and methods…

Onsite0
UpstartData Scientist
Oct 2025

SQL Screen Then a Four-Round Onsite Full of Case Studies

Three SQL questions, no need to actually run the query. There's a marketing table (by marketing_touch), and another one is a conversion table. The first question is to calculate avg count by month. The second is to find the last touch before conversion, by company (or by month, I don't quite remember). The third is: conversion and last touch both happened in some particular month, and how many co…

Onsite0
TikTokData Scientist
Oct 2025

Four Rounds, Then Downgraded to a DA Offer

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OfferOnsiteXP0
AmazonEconomist InternIntern
Oct 2025

Two Case+BQ Rounds, No Coding This Year

During this application season I also interviewed for the Amazon economist summer intern role, so I'm writing up my experience here to share with anyone who needs it. Timeline: Mid-January 2025: had a senior refer me 03/04/2025: HR reached out 03/26/2025: first round 03/28/2025: got the email that I passed the first round 04/16/2025: second round 04/16/2025: two hours later that same day, heard I…

In progressTechnical Screen0
DoorDashData Scientist
Oct 2025

Missed the Case Answer Until Five Minutes of Hints Got Me There

I had this interview not long ago. The SQL was the classic Delivery set — the overall question volume was pretty large, but not every question required you to actually write it out. Some of them asked how you'd turn an existing query into an aggregated version, and the interviewer just had me talk through how I'd change the query instead of writing the code, to save time. The case question was: c…

Technical Screen0
ByteDanceData Scientist
Oct 2025

Friendlier Than Expected, Then the Headcount Moved

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In progressTechnical ScreenXP0
MetaData Science Analyst
Oct 2025

Four VO Rounds (SQL, Stats, Product, BQ) and an Offer

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OfferOnsiteXP0
TencentData Scientist
Oct 2025

Ghosted After a Marketing-Email Design Question

The interview was conducted in Chinese. My interviewer was a staff data scientist on Tencent's North America team. Their team works on games — they even asked me what games I've played. The team covers both product DS work and modeling DS work. They started by asking about the projects on my resume, then followed up with a few more questions about them. After that, they asked me this question: Sa…

No responseTechnical Screen0
StripeData Scientist
Oct 2025

Rejected for 'Not Detailed Enough' After a Full Onsite Loop

I was interviewing for a DS role while still employed elsewhere. The overall process was decent, and after the interviews I felt pretty good about how it went, but in the end I still got a fail. Two rounds said my answers weren't detailed enough. Personally I think I was already quite detailed, and there wasn't a single question I couldn't answer or got wrong. Has anyone gotten similar feedback b…

RejectedOnsite0
StripeData Scientist
Oct 2025

Phone Screen, Then a Three-Question Take-home Under a Week

Still waiting for the final result, but I wanted to share my experience so far. A recruiter from Stripe had reached out to me directly before, so I didn't need to talk to HR again for this role — I went straight into the first round phone screen. A week later I was notified that I'd moved on to the written assessment, with a one-week time limit. I had to submit a presentable result along with the…

In progressTake-home Project0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Oct 2025

Onsite Case on a New Chat App, Ending in a Spaghetti-Chart Slide Critique

The interviewer had many years of experience and had a friendly, easygoing demeanor. Overall I felt our conversation flowed pretty smoothly, back and forth, and I was able to quickly follow up on a lot of the points he raised and give balanced, two-sided answers. Structurally I stuck to the standard framework (clarify, goal, pros/cons, hypothesis, data points, ...). Maybe because this was L5, the…

Onsite0
TikTokData ScientistSenior+
Oct 2025

Three Rounds, Rejected After the Hiring Manager Round

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

Onsite Went Easier Than Expected, Landed an Unexpected L5 Offer

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OfferOnsiteXP0

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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