Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Snap with 3.3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 45% positive. To compare, the company-average is 46.1% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 19 days to get hired, when considering 156 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Snap overall takes an average of 26 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Snap as a Software Engineer according to 156 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 41%
One on one interview: 23%
Skills test: 15%
Presentation: 9%
Group panel interview: 4%
Background check: 3%
IQ intelligence test: 1%
Drug test: 1%
Personality test: 1%
Other: 1%
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I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Snap (Venice, CA)
Interview
Interview was pretty straight forward. If you have a good programming background from working in personal projects or Open Source you'll do fine. I also recommend "Cracking the Coding Interview" book, there are some good questions there.
There are 3 rounds of interviews. Here is my experience
I received a phone call for around 20 mins. It was about C++ although the position was mostly about Python and Java. Not sure why they asked me about C++. I answered as best as I could and after the phone call I received an email about 2 mins later saying I got passed to the 2nd round. I honestly didn't think I made it since I answered horribly (In my opinion).
Second interview went smoother, it was a Python programming exercise via Skype, it took around 1 hour in total with answering problem and asking the engineer questions about SnapChat. Don't worry, if you know Python you'll do fine. About a day later I got an email saying I got to interview in person and they flew me into LA to their HQ. They paid for the flight and hotel which was nice.
Third and final interview is a whole day kinda deal, the engineers beat you with problems and pick your brain to see how you think. Questions were average and I answered all of them(with the exception of the final one which I failed miserably). They also have you hang out with an engineer during lunch to see if your a culture fit, the guy I was with was pretty cool.
About a week later I got the email that I didn't make it. Oh well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you know algorithms and some programming you'll do better than me. Serisouly
One initial screening call. Then 1 coding screen. Then an on-site with 3 coding rounds and 1 system design round. All the rounds were pretty straightforward DSA patterns and SD was also a common question you read about in SD interview prep books.
For the technical rounds, I was asked leetcode style questions. Need to practice Data structures and algorithms in order to do well on the interviews. It's important to explain the code as you go along and clarfiy any questions with the interviewer.
Hard but interesting. Had to go through 1 HM round, 2 coding rounds and 2 systems design rounds. Coding round was hit counter, and message recommendation system. The System design rounds were a bit challenging.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a recommendation system for messaging to predict the next word while typing