Data Scientist applicants have rated the interview process at Instacart with 3.1 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 38% positive. To compare, the company-average is 46.1% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Data Scientist roles take an average of 17 days to get hired, when considering 21 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Instacart overall takes an average of 16 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Instacart as a Data Scientist according to 21 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 29%
Skills test: 18%
One on one interview: 18%
Presentation: 12%
Group panel interview: 10%
Background check: 8%
Other: 2%
Drug test: 2%
Personality test: 2%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Instacart (San Francisco, CA) in Apr 2016
Interview
They send you a coding challenge which is easy enough. You just have to create a predictive model from a couple csv files they send you. Then they bring you onsite for a whiteboarding interview with some members of their current team. It was alright, the problems seemed straightforward. I ended up not getting an offer because they said my approach wasn't specific enough. Oh well. The team seemed smart and friendly. I went into this with 2 years experience when they were looking for 4, so perhaps I'm just not experienced enough yet.
Faced a deep technical challenge during the interview, asked to design a personalization algorithm for product recommendations. I walked them through feature engineering and model choices, which stressed me out initially. Luckily, I realized the structure was almost identical to a problem I had explored on prachub.com while prepping. The interview progressed through a behavioral round where they focused on my previous experiences, and I ultimately received an offer, but decided to decline after careful consideration. Overall, it was intense but rewarding.
It was pretty straightforward. HR and then technicals. The technicals were a mix of statistics and math questions. Overall, it moved pretty quickly. My interviewer was quite late with no apology and in general not very friendly. I knew someone interviewing at the same time and they had a much better experience and recieved the same questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Suppose we wanted to launch 15-minute deliveries in a specific area where we already deliver. How would you statistically test the results?