Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California
Process
I applied through a recruiter. The process took a week.Spoke with an engineer who asked random questions, such as what the slowest sorting algorithm is and its time complexity. They also had me code-review two functions. They made their entire decision in five minutes. The engineer was quite smug and wanted to leave the conversation after ten minutes.
Questions
What's the slowest sort algorithm? Review this piece of code. The first one was about a string concatenation, and the second was writing to a DB.
Was this helpful?
Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 6 interview experiences for the Mercor Software Engineer role in San Francisco, California.
Success Rate
Mercor's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in San Francisco, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very negative feelings for Mercor's Software Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.
Mercor Work Experiences
- 4.0Exciting tech ownership, but lacking recognitionSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeNew DelhiJuly 27, 2026Pros: Ownership; tech; bleeding edge of LLM training.Cons: recognition transparency pay hike promotion
- 1.0Mediocre leadershipSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, CAJanuary 8, 2026Pros: High pay, great benefits, comped Ubers, and food.Cons: Horrible WLB, bad leadership, and a mediocre company future
- 5.0Amazing work cultureSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMarch 13, 2024Pros: Amazing work culture, where you get to learn a lot and work on exciting problems. Every task kind of pushes you outside of your comfort zone to learn new things and implement them.Cons: Sometimes, work hours are lengthy, and they compensate well for the extra effort.
