I applied online. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart in Aug 2018
Interview
30 min initial call with internal recruiter
Live coding session (1 hour)
After passing the coding session, I was offered to come on-site for a technical challenge, white boarding session, and some round robin interviews. I was also given the option to do the challenge at home first. I selected the latter and chose the front end option. One question was to implement toaster notifications and the second to complete a game (both questions give you starter code with compiling/live reload). After submitting the challenge, I was told I will not be moving forward. The recruiter said the toaster app looked good but my game was not playable. I took a quick look at the game and noticed an error with the key binding behavior. In about 5 mins, I sent her the updated code and got back:
"Just spoke to the engineer who reviewed your challenge. He said that this does indeed address his concerns and if this is what you shipped initially, then you'd be moving forward to the onsite interview. Unfortunately, our answer remains the same.
That being said, I think it'd be great if we could stay in touch for future opportunities!"
My advice is to consider doing the challenge on-site. The recruiter indicated that on-site you would have access to an engineer. In my case, I could have received the appropriate feedback and adjusted the game code before shipment. My advice to Instacart would be to standardize the interview process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Live coding - implement a key/value class with some custom functionality
I'm sure it's easier to grade applicants with AI, but it'd be nice to have humans involved in the interview process, too. You'll face a couple of AI powered coding challenges. The bigger problems are the ethical implications here after looking into how the company works, with variable pricing based on data on how badly they can screw the consumer with upcharges and how to keep money in their pockets rather than the shoppers & drivers
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you could replace your family with AI, would you do it?
I applied online. I interviewed at Instacart (San Francisco, CA) in Feb 2026
Interview
First there is a codesignal test. This is for 90 minutes and felt frantic. Way too many features/code paths to implement.
Then there is the karat llm interview which is 50 minutes.
Then a full day of regular interview loop.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
For CodeSignal it was implementing a cache key store with timestamps. Started with basic setting and getting, then evolved into more advanced code. 4 different parts. Writing a lot of code for this.
For the LLM interview you work with a company called Karat. You are giving an VS code like workspace and an ai to help. You have 50 minutes. They then dump a large project in your space. For me it was a bus route simulator.
I was then asked to implement a feature : Have the system prioritize Priority Pass people. I used the LLM to track down the code and implement it, but it was difficult to test in code that is unknown to me. The next feature was implementing wheelchairs for the bus which requires special capacity checks.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON) in Feb 2025
Interview
1. Online OA with codesignal to start with. Very standard and not hard
2. Got the 4 interview rounds and you can always divide into 2 parts of 2 interviews each. It was be 2 codesignals with medium difficulty and I managed to do both. One system design which was average for me and interviewer was okay as well. Behavioural round was standard. No wonder why I didn't manage to get the offer.
3
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