Interview Experiences

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

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4437 stories

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Two SigmaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Trie-Tree OA, Rejected on a Permutation Question

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RejectedOnsitePremium0
UberData ScientistSenior+
Sep 2025

Two Phone Screens After No Sleep with a Sick Kid

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Technical ScreenXP0
Jane StreetQuantitative TraderIntern
Sep 2025

A Coin-Flipping Magic Wand and a Rainy Weekend

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Technical ScreenPremium0
Two SigmaQuantitative ResearcherIntern
Sep 2025

A HackerRank OA With a Linear Interpolator and a Multi-Part Regression Problem

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Online AssessmentPremium0
PinterestSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Three Coding Rounds, One Rough System Design

Overall it wasn't too hard — three coding rounds, one system design round, and one BQ round — but the system design round was really brutal... Here are the details: Coding: I'd never seen this one before. They give you a pre-written class that has a next() function — each call returns a string, roughly like this: "one//ntw", "o//n", "three//nfour", "//nfi", "ve" You're supposed to write your own…

Onsite0
SnowflakeSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Binary Search on Error Logs, Then a Graph BFS/DFS Follow-up

A classic problem in application-question form. Binary Search The input is a log history. There are three kinds of logs: Info, Warn, and Error, and each log starts with its own type — for example, an Info-type log looks like "[Info] ...". The log history follows two patterns: Once an Error shows up, the service is down, and every log after that is also Error. The first Error is always preceded by…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Bank System OA, Ran Out of Time on Level 3

This is the old bank system question from the forum. Let me add some details. Level 2 needs to output a string with the account information: {accountId}{amount spent}. For level 3, all transfers and pending transfers are best kept in a map rather than a list, to save time. Level 1: just creating an account, and adding/deducting balance. Level 2: track the n users who transferred out the most mone…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

A Four-Part In-Memory Database OA on CodeSignal

Just finished it, seems like a new OA, I haven't seen this one on the forum before. The first two parts were pretty easy. The third was a bit annoying but manageable. The fourth needed some time. It was on CodeSignal. Implement an in-memory database. This database is basically a double hashmap, something like: The key is user1, user2, the field is age, height, and the value is 12, 180. Step 1: St…

Online Assessment0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Cracking the 111-Statement Personality Screen

Google has recently started requiring candidates to fill out a kind of psychometric test that checks their tendencies and behaviors in a work environment — things like communication style, collaboration, and problem-solving ability. This helps them judge whether a candidate has the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed at the company. Because of the sheer volume of applications they…

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MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Three of Four Levels on the Bank System Question

Bank System. This is an old question that has shown up on the forum before. Level 1: implement the createAccount, deposit, and pay methods. Level 2: find the top N activity, based on the sum of deposit and pay amounts. You just maintain a size-N min-heap with a priority queue. Level 3: When you transfer, you hold the money from the source account; when you accept, it actually moves to the target…

Technical Screen0
TikTokFrontend Engineer
Sep 2025

Comment Box Coding Question, Rejected Two Days Later

Sharing my recent TikTok front-end phone interview experience. I applied for a front-end position. The recruiter reached out about a week after I applied through the system, and we scheduled a phone screen. The technical phone screen was 1-on-1, 45 minutes of coding. The interviewer spoke English fine, but talked pretty fast. The whole pace was tight — basically no small talk, straight into it. T…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
StripeFrontend Engineer
Sep 2025

Passed the 45-Minute Live Coding Phone Screen

I want to share my recent phone screen experience with Stripe's frontend team. The role was a remote Frontend Engineer position, and I got into the process through a friend's referral. Things moved pretty fast — when scheduling the interview, the recruiter sent over the coding guide and prep focus areas right away. The phone screen was 45 minutes of live coding. The interviewer was a senior front…

In progressTechnical Screen0
Bilt RewardsSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Passed Every Unit Test, Still Rejected

A recruiter from this company reached out to me directly on LinkedIn — not a staffing agency. After the recruiter call, we scheduled a phone screen. Side rant: I actually have this credit card myself, and the Android app is painfully slow. They basically survive by hoodwinking Wells Fargo and their investors. Anyway, after replying on LinkedIn we set up an intro call, and this recruiter also emai…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
Applied IntuitionSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

A 45-Minute Screen and a Transactional Key-Value Store Question

HR reached out to me on LinkedIn, and we scheduled the first phone call. HR gave a quick overview of the company and emphasized how intense the work culture is there. HR made it clear that the next round would normally be a one-hour interview, but explained that because the company valued efficiency and speed, they were only giving me 45 minutes. Then we scheduled the first technical phone screen…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Cutting Squares of Cake with Binary Search

One of my interview questions: There's a table, and the top-left corner of the table is the origin (0, 0). On the table there are countless non-overlapping square cakes of different sizes. The question: how do you make one horizontal cut (parallel to the x-axis) so that after the cut, the total cake area on each side is equal? The interesting part is that all the coordinates are floats, but the s…

Onsite0
StripeSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

A Month of Scheduling Delays, Then a Tight Three-Part Coding Screen

Timeline: Early July: first HR phone call, interviewer was a few minutes late. Mainly asked about location, discussed compensation, my past work experience, why I chose Stripe. (But they mentioned Stripe supports fully remote, which is pretty nice) After that, they agreed to schedule a technical phone screen, but then sent the wrong email template again — it took me a week and two reminders to ge…

In progressTechnical Screen0
DoorDashSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

A Two-Day Virtual Onsite After the DashMart Phone Screen

Vendor recruiter call After the referral, I got an email scheduling the vendor recruiter call and the phone screen separately. This round was just going over my resume and checking whether there was overlap with the target team. The whole thing was 10+ minutes, and the questions felt pretty targeted. Phone screen A senior manager, and I got the DashMart problem. I hadn't looked at any write-ups b…

Onsite0
AmazonSoftware EngineerSenior+
Sep 2025

Five Rounds, No Breaks, and a Gum-Chewing Hiring Manager

Just finished interviewing this week. Not a great experience. The whole process was rocky — I got re-matched to a different team several times, and there were two months between the phone screen and the onsite. Security & Service org. It felt like they just wanted to go through the motions, not like they actually wanted to hire me. Round three with the hiring manager was especially bad — I've nev…

RejectedOnsite0
TikTokData Engineer
Sep 2025

Recruiter Chaos, a Skipped OA, and a Data Modeling Round With No Code

I interviewed for a data engineer role on one of the teams under USDS. The questions were pretty weak, so I'll focus mostly on the process instead. Right now I've just finished one HR round plus three Zoom call interviews. First, I had a friend at TikTok (not on the USDS team) refer me for a bunch of positions, but I only got one rejection back — no response on any of the rest. Then, almost a mon…

In progressTechnical Screen0
TripStackSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Go-Heavy Screen and a Notepad Coding Round

I applied online to a platform that searches and sells connecting/interline flight tickets. After I applied, a recruiter reached out and said I'd need to do an OA first. Since the company uses Go, there was no other language option. The OA had two questions, one greedy and one DP, and the difficulty was unusually high for an OA. After I passed the OA, it took the recruiter two weeks to tell me I'…

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.

Share your experience to earn XP