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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PinterestData Scientist
Aug 2025

A Restaurant Reservation Coding Question and a Deep-Dive Stats Round

I felt like the whole interview experience was really good — the interviewers listened carefully, and there wasn't that "gotta beat you down" attitude some interviewers have. Two of the rounds felt somewhat difficult to me. coding: Not counting the resume intro, small talk, and the interviewer showing up late, the actual working time was about 30 minutes. The question involved a nested dictionary…

Onsite0
BrexAccount Executive
Reported Aug 2025

Brex Account Executive interview with mock cold-call rounds

My process with Brex didn’t feel smooth, even though it started in a fairly normal way. I went through the usual early screening setup, but the scheduling and follow-through immediately gave me a strange feeling. One calendar invite was outside the availability I’d provided. When I asked questions beforehand, they were mostly brushed off. On the day of the interview, the interviewer was late and…

RejectedOther0
KaratSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

Karat Software Engineer interview: one-hour live coding and system design session

The process started with a short, multiple-choice qualifying test. I could choose topics such as backend, general coding logic, or algorithms and data structures. After I passed, I was invited almost immediately to schedule the actual interview. The main technical interview was a live online video session that lasted about an hour. It combined discussion and analysis questions with a system desig…

RejectedOther0
GarminSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

Garmin Software Engineer interview with two engineers coding

I interviewed for a Software Engineer role at Garmin through a fairly lightweight, two-step process that took place over a few weeks. The recruiter phone screen covered my background and included behavioral questions about how I work. In the technical interview, two engineers watched me code a solution to a problem and discuss my approach. The process felt straightforward, but I didn't advance be…

RejectedHR Screen0
Chainlink LabsSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

Chainlink Labs Software Engineer interview: prolonged process and communication gaps

I ended up in a process that took far too long, and the lack of organization and follow-through really weighed on me. My path included multiple rounds across several days. By the time I was deep into it, it felt like the interviewers kept circling the same themes and repeating questions instead of moving toward anything new. Communication between stages was inconsistent, and I often heard nothing…

0
Aurora InnovationSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

Aurora Innovation Software Engineer interview with a 45-minute graph traversal screen

I went through a direct, coding-focused process that came down to timing. After speaking with the recruiter, I completed a coding screen on a CodePad-style platform. I couldn't finish the DSA question within the 45-minute window, so the process stopped there without an offer. The most frustrating part was how close it felt. I knew which direction to take, but I couldn't turn that approach into a…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
AKUNA CAPITALSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

AKUNA CAPITAL Software Engineer HackerRank OA and live coding screen

After applying, I was immediately routed into a HackerRank OA that I had to complete in about an hour. Once I finished it, I received an invitation to a first-round technical discussion. It took place over Zoom, and before the call I was sent a coding link where I would write the solution. The flow was fairly standard: an OA followed by a real-time coding screen focused on how I approached the pr…

Online Assessment0
SmartsheetSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

Smartsheet Software Engineer interview with next-day rejection

I had a pretty typical early sequence: an HR screener followed by a technical interview. In the technical round, I solved everything the interviewer asked me to solve. The next day, I was rejected, which caught me off guard. From the explanation afterward, it sounded like there were many highly qualified candidates, and my performance alone wasn't the deciding factor. That made the whole thing fe…

RejectedHR Screen0
SmartsheetSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

Smartsheet Software Engineer interview where a coding round turned into system design

My Smartsheet process felt unclear in both the way it was explained and the way it actually ran. The recruiter screen went well, and I was told to expect an easy progression into a coding screen. Instead, the round described as a one-hour coding interview turned into system design. The same mismatch continued at the onsite. I had a behavioral round, several hours of coding, and some trivial quest…

Onsite0
Aurora InnovationSoftware Engineer
Reported Aug 2025

Aurora Innovation Software Engineer: Coding Interview Passed, No Offer

My interview started with a behavioral phone screen, followed by a behavioral conversation with a tech lead and then a coding interview. Everyone I spoke with was genuinely nice and seemed passionate about the project. The overall vibe felt supportive instead of combative. I passed the coding interview, which made me feel optimistic about the later stages. Even so, they chose another candidate. T…

RejectedHR Screen0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Aug 2025

Positive Phone Screen, Killed by Boomerang Leveling Rule

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

WithdrewTechnical ScreenXP0
PeregrineSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

A Grueling Practical-Coding Onsite, Rejected Over 'Coding Notes'

I've failed a bunch of these interviews recently — huge amounts of code, all in the details, barely any algorithms. Not sure if I'm just writing too slowly or what, but it feels like they're hiring an AI. The take-home was the same as one already discussed on the forum — pretty simple, just understand the context, aggregate some data, then filter. The hiring manager round had a bit of a weak red…

RejectedOnsite0
MicrosoftSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Online Assessment, Knapsack DP Timeout Turned Binary Search

I think I probably failed. Two problems in 90 minutes, and right after layoffs they're still running a hiring event, which is honestly a dark joke. The role is general level 62. My first problem was labeled medium difficulty, and the second was said to be harder. But I used knapsack DP for the first problem and it timed out... I ended up rewriting it as binary search right at the wire. They claim…

Online Assessment0
CoinbaseSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Stuck on Debounce in the Autocomplete Round

Technical phone screen (1 round) It was a pure whiteboard-style coding round — I had to implement an autocomplete feature for an input box. Requirements: debounce, async fetch, and rendering the results. Follow-up: support keyboard navigation (up/down arrow keys to switch), highlight the selected item, and submit on Enter. I got stuck right at the debounce part — I couldn't get the event handler…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
MetaData Engineer
Aug 2025

Three Onsite Case Studies on Private Accounts, Carpooling, and Netflix

The overall experience was okay — at least all the interviewers were superficially friendly. But two of them were more than 5 minutes late. For every product sense question, they'd first ask you how you understood the product, then ask what dimensions there were (at this stage they just wanted a high-level list of entities), and finally what metrics you'd use. The first question was a new one, ab…

Onsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Four Technical Rounds, From a Mumbled Zigzag Traversal to a Log-Eviction Design

Round 1: Technical Interview The interviewer was a guy with a really heavy accent, spoke fast, and I had a hard time understanding him. For the whole round I was basically guessing what he was asking. This round was a binary tree traversal question (a LeetCode original or a close variant). The core ask: given the root of a binary tree, implement a zigzag (sawtooth) level-order traversal. This is…

Technical Screen0
IntuitData Scientist
Aug 2025

Four Rounds in Three Hours, Starting With a Live Take-Home Presentation

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

OnsiteXP0
NetflixSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Two Phone Screens, Then a Week of Silence Before Rejection

Rejected. It doesn't feel like a hard fail — after the interview it took about a week to hear back, and when I followed up, HR said they were syncing up with the team, and in the end told me they were moving on with other candidates. My own sense is that I didn't perform badly, but definitely not perfectly — there were various small issues where I didn't give the optimal answer right away, or I m…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
AnthropicSoftware EngineerSenior+
Aug 2025

An Extra LRU Cache Round After Admitting I'd Seen the First One Before

Overall the questions weren't hard, but there was a lot of code to write. The phone screen was one coding round — they asked the file deduplication problem (Q2), done in Replit. The onsite ended up being 5 rounds total; it was originally supposed to be 4, and they added one more later: Round 1 (Coding): asked about the web crawler problem (Q1). The interviewer asked if I'd seen a similar question…

OfferOnsite0
BoxSoftware EngineerSenior+
Aug 2025

Aced Five Rounds, Failed on the Resume Deep-Dive

A recruiter reached out to me about a Senior SDE position — half development, half DevOps. I didn't have DevOps experience, but I said yes anyway. Round 1 was the technical phone screen, the classic four questions. The interviewer laughed and admitted the questions hadn't changed in years. A system has failed and you can only SSH in to check the logs. The log file is huge — what do you do? Answer…

RejectedOnsite0

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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