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      Software Engineer Interview

      24 Nov 2015
      Anonymous interview candidate
      San Francisco, CA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Lyft (San Francisco, CA) in Nov 2015

      Interview

      I have friends working at Lyft and I've heard good words from them, so to clarify this review only reflects my personal interview experience at Lyft. I was referred by a friend who works at Lyft, it took roughly a week for the recruiter to contact me. Had the initial phone screen (a quick infinite multi-stream processing coding question) and invited on-site right after. On-site is when the experience went from an 8 to a 3. The day was originally scheduled with 5 tech interviews (2 coding, 2 arch designs, and one closing) and one lunch interview. The first two interviews were conducted with engineers (both nice and polite but lack of interviewing experience). The first interview question was to coding for LRU cache functionalities. While talking through the process one solution was proposed with a runtime of O(lgN) for maintenance- having a heap to keep track the LRU item and a hash for each item and MRU time. When the solution was agreed upon from both parties the interviewer asked to implement the get() function. Before white-boarding the codes down, he asked for the runtime for get(). Given the solution that was proposed previously, the get() will have a runtime of O(1) (hash table lookup). The next 15 min the interviewer was trying to skew the mindset to repeating "is there any other possible runtime for get()?" - "no, unless you have a different solution in mind." - the communication was the first struggle of the first interview. The second struggle was after the 15 min juggling through nowhere - the interviewer simply paused and asked to code the get() function out. Given the established solution the get() implementation goes: def get(url) if hash(url) hash(url) end end Then (when 5-8 min left) he finally said - is there a more optimal solution? That's when the solution was changed from hash&heap to hash&(pointer and array), which will give a runtime of O(N) for general maintenance. In this case, the get() function includes multiple steps: 1. get the data if it's stored in cache O(N) 2. update the pointer of hashed item to the end of the array In this case, the get() has a runtime of O(N) instead of O(1). That called for the first interview. The second interview was a good experience. Even though the interviewer is a junior (he's the last min sub for the originally scheduled interviewer) engineer but he was quick straightforward and explicit on coding question (did the coding on his coderpad.io). He also took the extra time at the end to answer my questions (during the lunchtime) even though he didn't have to. I was impressed with his maturity and attentiveness as a young interviewer. His coding question is to write a compressor for text documents given the in and outs of a decompressor. Then the 30 min lunch *interview* - nothing. The interviewer was busy eating with his two giant plates of food as opposed to have *useful* conversations; I would have preferred to eat by myself. The general protocol of lunch interview is to converse with the interviewee with intros to the company and culture. No, none of it. The third interview was conducted with a fairly experienced engineer/HM. That's the most enjoyable interview session I had that day. The question is on arch design. We spent 20 min talking about work experience (same specific field of engineering so granted lots of conversations) and another 25 on numerous cases of arch design. The design question is on design for a promo code based system (with same promo code, randomly generated promo code, and promo code with conditions). When the fourth interviewer is supposed to show up - no he didn't. The recruiter did - ended the interviews early. A sign that is easy to spot, asked me if I have any questions. I said no - replied that if the interview is cut short it's generally not a good sign. She tried to explain that it wasn't the case - but I left early as well and went to grab coffee with my friend working there. It wasn't a pleasant experience for me - with the combination of inexperienced interviewers, abruptly cut-short interviews (understandable, but definitely baffled), and lack of enthusiasm from the employees (lunch chat) - none granted a near sufficient respect to interviewees. I speak as someone who also conducts interviews with software engineers on weekly basis, regardless of their level, background, or positions - interviewers should always own the responsibility for providing the time for interviewees who took their time for the interviews.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Compressor and decompressor
      Answer question
      28

      Other Software Engineer interview reviews for Lyft

      Software Engineer Interview

      13 May 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Toronto, ON
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Lyft (Toronto, ON) in May 2026

      Interview

      My experience wasn’t great with Lyft. During my system design interview, my interviewer kept silent most of the time. No communication, and he seems to end my interview session as soon as possible. Be careful about this

      Software Engineer Interview

      13 Dec 2025
      Anonymous interview candidate
      San Francisco, CA
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Lyft (San Francisco, CA)

      Interview

      Process is good. Not too exhaustive and they respond quickly. Recruiters are great too. I cleared all my interviews and I am in team matching since a very long time. Lyft does not give you an offer even after clearing interviews.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      LC medium. System design - medium level question. Product side system design
      Answer question

      Software Engineer Interview

      12 Dec 2025
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Neutral experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at Lyft in Dec 2025

      Interview

      recruiter call - coding interview - onsite (system design, coding, behavior) Processing around a month due to holiday season. 1-2hrs after coding interview got onsite invitation. 2days after onsite, got auto rejection email .
      1

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