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.
No offer
Negative experience
Easy interview
Application
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Instacart (San Francisco, CA)
Interview
I wasn't actively looking, but one of their recruiters reached out to me. I thought to myself, sure why not? We talked about the role and afterward, I felt like it was a great fit! Had a technical phone screen with one of their senior data scientists, which went very well! They followed up with a take-home assignment, which I spent two days working on, completed and sent it in. The team reviewed and decided to invite me onsite. I sent over a few days when I was available to go, but then they went quiet and didn't respond to me. After a few days of silence, I get an email from the recruiter saying that they decided to change the role completely and only look for very senior candidates.
I was speechless...
Pulling me in to go through the process, putting in the time to do the work, only to reevaluate the role entirely. Infuriating.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explored various ways of monitoring user growth and retention.
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?