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%
Drug test: 1%
Personality test: 1%
IQ intelligence test: 1%
Other: 1%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Snap (San Francisco, CA) in Apr 2023
Interview
I interviewed for an L6/staff backend role. Overall I got the sense that they were scrambling because of their recent stock price collapse and also noticed tensions between what employees wanted and management's strict return to office mandate. Interviews started with a programming technical screen, then 5 virtual onsite interviews split over 2 days. The onsite process was very haphazard. They didn't tell me what the interviewers would be covering and it seems like they switched me from a pure backend role to an ML infra role halfway through. But the process was relatively fast. The interviews were scheduled quickly and they told me their decision within a few days of the onsite.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Three programming interviews (including phone screen). One of them was an annoying leetcode-y question with a trick (which I didn't see) but the other two were reasonable. Two system design interviews. I got the sense the interviewers wanted specific answers that matched how they'd solved those problems. Some behavioural questions but no interview focused on this (unusual to not focus on this for an L6 role).
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.
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
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.