Software Engineer Interview Experience - Toronto, Canada
Process
HR was friendly and quickly arranged for an interview.
The interview process included:
- A system design exercise (whiteboarding).
- Two coding challenges.
- A team fit interview.
The system design exercise was fine, although somewhat poorly articulated. The coding challenges were tailored for Python, despite the position being for Ruby on Rails. The interviewers also only knew Python and were very unfriendly.
Like another reviewer pointed out, it felt more like an observation than an interview; they did not interact or assist if you got stuck. The team fit portion was also very confrontational, with questions like "What are you good for?"
This was definitely the most unwelcoming interview I've ever been part of. Their office is very gloomy and depressing, so I can see why.
Questions
Design and white-board a database model for an Instacart-like system.
File I/O and array manipulation.
REST calls, string manipulation, combinatorics.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 10 interview experiences for the Instacart Software Engineer role in Toronto, Ontario.
Success Rate
Instacart's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Toronto, Ontario is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having negative feelings for Instacart's Software Engineer interview process in Toronto, Ontario.
Instacart Work Experiences
- 4.0Great Place to WorkSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeToronto, Ontario, CanadaJanuary 19, 2022Pros: A lot of autonomy is given to software engineers. Very transparent information dissemination across the company. Great benefits, unlimited vacation, retirement account matching, and overall above average compensation.Cons: Work-life balance is good a lot of the time, but there are crunch periods (depends on your team).
- 3.0Not bad, not good. It's alrightSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeToronto, Ontario, CanadaAugust 12, 2025Pros: Good product sometimes, but skews towards what makes money and what the C-suite is excited for.Cons: No communication with manager on my part, so the experience is person-to-person and not really standardized. Career growth is stunted since they don't really do internal promotions.
- 4.0Good Place, Okay BalanceSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeToronto, Ontario, CanadaJanuary 7, 2021Pros: It's a great place to work.Cons: Work-life balance isn't terrible, but it's not great either.
Instacart Interview Questions
