The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart (San Francisco, CA) in Aug 2020
Interview
There is a recruiter screen, then a technical round on hackerrank, then an onsite (2 rounds coding, 1 round talk to a manager about previous experience, 1 round system design)
Some technical difficulties during the interview but interviewer tried her best to make it a good experience otherwise. I asked for feedback after not getting an offer and my recruiter (Megan) actually hopped on a call with me and gave me very detailed feedback about the onsite, mine was about not being familiar with syntax of my chosen language
They definitely value candidates time and I would interview again
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
the sys design one was something about how you would communicate with a payments processor. forgot the coding ones but I think they were fairly easy
I applied online. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON)
Interview
I had a couple of interview rounds with Instacart. Overall, I think it went pretty well, except for one round that didn’t feel as strong. I asked for feedback afterward, but unfortunately they didn’t share any. The system design and algorithm questions were manageable, especially if you’re familiar with LeetCode-style problems. One thing I really appreciated is that they clearly explain what to expect in each interview round ahead of time, which helps a lot with preparation.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
One of the rounds was behavioral — they asked questions based on my resume and also about how I work and behave in a team environment.
Four long rounds and ghosted after the interview, even though all technical assessments went well. Tedious process but they do give you a gift card as a compensation for your time and effort.
I applied online. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON) in Jul 2025
Interview
2 rounds of 60 min coding sessions, a 1hr break after that, 45 min behavioural round, and then an easy system design round for 60 mins. Questions were pretty straight forward and easy. Second coding round has data structures involved, first one is just parsing thru dictionaries. Could not finish the second part of the second coding round. Behavioural interviewer has a dull personality and sort of killed the vibe. Otherwise I did really well on every round but still didn’t get the offer. Looking at Reddit, seems like many people had the same experience and were surprised to not get the offer so I don’t know if it’s worth your time interviewing here.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
[coding round 2]: you have one shopper and multiple orders of varying start times and durations. Calculate the average wait times.
