The phone screen was surprisingly short, only about 20 minutes, focusing on my background and some general ML concepts. Then came the technical round where I had to design a ranking model for Instacart’s search results. Midway through, it hit me that I had just practiced a very similar problem on PracHub, which made me feel a bit more confident. However, the depth of the discussion, especially around metrics and cold-start items, was intense. In the end, I didn’t receive an offer, but it was a decent experience overall.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON) in Sept 2025
Interview
1 round of HR screen, 4 rounds of technical
Technical:
- ML alg knowledge
- Live code - Leetcode style
- Case study: they give you a case
- Retro study: walk them through a past project
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON) in Feb 2025
Interview
There are four round in total:
1 code (leetcode easy level)
2 ML concept (focus on fundamental traditional ML stuff)
3 ML system design
4 BQ and project
NDA signed for last two rounds. But the recruiter will tell you the expected topic
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Basic ML concept like l1 l2 norm/loss. concept like recall precision etc.