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Interview experiences
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Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Senior+ Software Engineer Interview Experience — A Tetris-Style Grid Placement OA Question
There's an n x m grid of squares, and I need to draw a pattern on it. The pattern is made up of several fixed block shapes, kind of like Tetris. The problem gave 5 figure types: A, B, C, D, E. For A: in a 2x2 square, it only occupies the top-left, top-right, and bottom-left cells. So A is: That is, a U-shape / concave shape with the top-middle cell empty. This should go by the example matrix — fo…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer interview: CodeSignal OA under time pressure
My process was dominated by a CodeSignal OA where time pressure mattered a great deal. I completed the assessment and earned full points on three of the four questions, which was a relief, but the clock was already working against me by the time I reached the last one. The OA had four DSA questions in 70 minutes. I fully solved questions 1, 2, and 4 and got top marks on each. When I reached quest…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer Interview Experience — A Full OA Question Bank (Oct 2025–Jan 2026)
Given a target and an array, count how many elements are greater than the target and how many are less than it. If there are more greater elements, return greater; if there are more smaller elements, return smaller; if they're equal, return tie. Given an initial state, a season, and a day, return the moon state for that specific date. The moon's cycle is 8 days with 8 possible states, and the ini…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer Interview Experience — Four CodeSignal Tasks Without a Recruiter Call
The author reports receiving a four-question CodeSignal assessment from Capital One without prior recruiter contact. One task involved a basic array operation, but the author could not recall its details. The other tasks concerned alternating high and low values around a circular array, identifying a smaller pattern within a numeric matrix, and determining whether segments fit on a number line co…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer Interview Experience — Four Coding Questions in the Online Assessment
Given an array, find the first element whose two adjacent neighbors are both strictly larger. Given 2 arrays with the same length n, calculate the sum of absolute diff for each cyclic t-shift of nums1 with nums2. Return a list of all sums sorted in nondescending order. Given a 2D matrix and a pattern, return the coordinate of the submatrix with the lowest row index and lowest column. The submatri…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer Interview Experience — Four OA Problems Under a Tight Clock
The first problem was to figure out how many numbers in an array are a power of some number k. Basically you check whether repeatedly dividing by k eventually gets you to 1, but you have to watch out for the special case where k=1. The second problem was about a planet's lunar calendar: given the moon phase at the start of the year, compute the moon phase on a given date. The phases cycle every 8…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer Interview Experience — Four-Question OA Where the Rotting-Oranges BFS Ate My Time
Posting this a while after the fact. I strongly recommend doing them in the order 1-2-4-3. People on the forum did say 3 was kind of hard, and I got stuck on it for ages. I'd have been better off doing 4. To explain: the easy questions up front take roughly 25 minutes, and then two mediums in 45 minutes is still pretty hard. You're better off getting full points on one of the last two questions..…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer Interview Experience — Power Day with Case, Behavioral, Coding and System Design
I just finished the C1 power day. There are already plenty of OA write-ups on the forum so I won't go into that, I'll mainly talk about the four power day rounds as a reference for anyone interviewing later. The four rounds were case, behavioral, coding, and system design. The case was the virtual card number one, which someone has posted about here before. First we talked about the benefits and…
Interview experiences · Capital One
Capital One Software Engineer interview: four one-hour interviews in one day
I interviewed in a standard four-interviews-in-one-day format. After earlier rounds, I had four one-hour sessions that were evaluated together: two technical interviews, one behavioral interview, and one case interview. The technical interviews used LeetCode-style problem solving. The behavioral session focused on my experience and how I described my work. The case interview was about walking thr…
Interview experiences · Carvana
Carvana Software Engineer Interview Experience — Overqualified for One Team, Four-Round Onsite With Another
This was a mass application, general backend. Carvana is a used-car sales app based in Tempe. I was first matched to a team doing finance. Round 1 A problem from a coding-practice site — the problem name was written in disguised characters so I can't tell exactly what it was — plus a behavioral question. I only wrote out the conversion for numbers under 999; for the ≥1000 case I just explained it…
Interview experiences · CATERPILLAR
CATERPILLAR Data Analyst Interview Experience: Clear sales-support discussion
I began with a direct recruiter conversation about the role, day-to-day work, and how the company viewed it. Soon after, I had a technical interview for sales support. The questions covered day-to-day work, competing demands, communication with different teams, pressure, and pace. The interviewers were calm and objective, and I felt they wanted to understand my reasoning. I could explain my analy…
Interview experiences · CATERPILLAR
CATERPILLAR Software Engineer interview: French STAR response
After a recruiter step, I had a panel interview with three developers. The atmosphere was friendly, and they were helpful when I got stuck. The format relied heavily on STAR-style behavioral questions, including one that I had to answer in French. There were also a couple of technical questions and questions about my resume and situations from past roles. The technical side was not extreme, but t…
Interview experiences · Cerebras
Cerebras New Grad Software Engineer Interview Experience — Three Whiteboard Coding Rounds on HackerRank
Last year I interviewed at this company and got the position, working on kernel implementation. They design their own chips, and I found their architecture really cool. I already had some experience with custom accelerator design. I applied for an entry-level position. I'd done some research in this area during college, which helped both with getting a referral and getting the company interested…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer interview: a 12-minute call in a 45-minute slot
The interview felt surprisingly short. I had been given a 45-minute slot, but the call lasted closer to 12 minutes, and the interviewer was very direct. They told me that only one person would receive the position and said I'd hear back in the middle of the following week. The process was straightforward and not stressful, but its brevity made it feel a bit opaque. Location: San Francisco, CA. Ov…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer Interview Experience — Recruiter Screen Goes Cagey Over Comp Questions
I'm based in Canada. I mass-applied online and a recruiter set up an intro call. The recruiter was late first, then asked a few questions: self-introduction, tech stack, why I'm looking for a job, the project I was most proud of in the past year, how I handle burnout, how I communicate with the team when remote, and whether I'm really into blockchain / have been following it closely. Maybe it was…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer interview for a UI-type role
My first step was an HR interview, and it felt smooth and pretty standard. I was told the next interviews would involve engineers and leads, with a test in the middle. The next challenge was an online coding task where I walked through my thinking and got through most of it. What threw me off was how the test was conducted and evaluated. I mentioned that I didn’t do well on interview calls, but I…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer interview: HackerRank test for a UI-focused role
I received a HackerRank test shortly after applying. I don't remember seeing anything in writing, either in the recruiter's emails or before the HR screen, that clearly said it had to be completed in a specific language such as JavaScript. I had to adjust quickly and brush up on it. The bigger mismatch was between the test and what I thought I was interviewing for. Since the role was UI focused,…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer interview: multi-stage process with system design and executive discussion
My process felt long and multi-stage, with several steps to narrow things down. It started with recruiter touchpoints, followed by several technical interviews with engineers. The difficulty was serious rather than casual. I worked through algorithm questions and then moved into system design, including distributed-systems concepts. As I progressed, the technical rounds became more focused on arc…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
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…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer interview with recruiter follow-ups
After a brief coding assessment, I had a pleasant conversation with a recruiter who said they were interested in moving me forward. They told me they'd reach out the following week to schedule the next interview, but I never heard back. I sent a couple of follow-up emails asking for an update, and still got no response. The interviews themselves weren't the issue. The silence and lack of professi…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer, NDA and lengthy take-home process
From the beginning, what stood out was how much time the process required outside the live interviews. I signed an NDA, and at least part of the coding challenge involved a third party. The recruiter was supportive, and the structure sounded transparent, but the later stages made it clear how much of the burden was on me. The biggest surprise was the take-home work. One round was described as pot…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Software Engineer, positive team interviews and hiring concerns
The interviews with the actual team felt positive, which was the surprising part. My disappointment came from the hiring process overall. Despite the company’s public values, I perceived discriminatory practices in the way hiring was handled. That contrast made me feel that the recruitment process wasn’t aligned with what the organization claimed to stand for. Even though the interview atmosphere…
Interview experiences · Chainlink Labs
Chainlink Labs Solutions Engineer interview: 90-minute HackerRank and 15+ hour take-home
I started with a recruiter call that set the pace and guided me through the process. After that, I completed a HackerRank round that lasted about 90 minutes. It included multiple-choice questions, a straightforward DSA problem, and a language-specific API check. Next was a conversation with an engineering manager about cultural fit, followed by a hiring manager call that led to the next stage. I…
Interview experiences · Chariot
Chariot Software Engineer Interview Experience — An Interactive HTTP Maze Coding Challenge
I got reached out to by a headhunter by chance — they said it's a company doing a DAF (Donor-Advised Fund) giving platform. I felt the direction was pretty niche, so I went and interviewed. Overall the experience was pretty good, especially their coding question — it's one of the more interesting ones I've seen recently. The question they gave wasn't a traditional Leetcode problem, but an interac…