TikTok

Software Engineer (Internship) Interview Experience - San Jose, California

November 8, 2025

Neutral ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Round 1: OA (General Coding Assessment on CodeSignal), Scored 600/600

Round 2: Technical/behavioral interview, LeetCode medium + questions about resume.

Round 3: Technical/behavioral interview, LeetCode medium + questions about resume.

Passed every question, then the team hit headcount.

Questions

How to detect if this graph is a tree?

Was this helpful?

Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 13 interview experiences for the TikTok Software Engineer (Internship) role in San Jose, California.

Success Rate

15%

Pass Rate

TikTok's interview process for their Software Engineer (Internship) roles in San Jose, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive38%

Neutral62%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for TikTok's Software Engineer (Internship) interview process in San Jose, California.

TikTok Work Experiences

Friendly Team, Time Zone Challenges

Software Development Engineer (SDE) • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

November 23, 2025

Pros: The people here are friendly, and the food is good.

Cons: You need to get a meeting with the team based in another country.

Friendly Team, Time Zone Challenges

Software Development Engineer (SDE) • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

November 23, 2025

Pros: The people here are friendly, and the food is good.

Cons: You need to get a meeting with the team based in another country.

Impactful Work, Little Balance

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

November 2, 2025

Pros: Great impact, large project, grow fast.

Cons: Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance.

Impactful Work, Little Balance

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

November 2, 2025

Pros: Great impact, large project, grow fast.

Cons: Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance.

Scale Fast, Docs Slow

Backend Engineer • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

October 30, 2025

Pros: Operates at an impressive scale. Iterate quickly and fail fast to build successful features.

Cons: Fast growth results in a slightly disorganized ecosystem. Lots of technical documentation is fragmented, repeated, and often outdated. Additionally, it is usually written in Chinese, with algorithmic translations available or a translated version of the doc (sometimes outdated!) also available.

Scale Fast, Docs Slow

Backend Engineer • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

October 30, 2025

Pros: Operates at an impressive scale. Iterate quickly and fail fast to build successful features.

Cons: Fast growth results in a slightly disorganized ecosystem. Lots of technical documentation is fragmented, repeated, and often outdated. Additionally, it is usually written in Chinese, with algorithmic translations available or a translated version of the doc (sometimes outdated!) also available.

Friendly Team, Time Zone Challenges

Software Development Engineer (SDE) • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

November 23, 2025

Pros: The people here are friendly, and the food is good.

Cons: You need to get a meeting with the team based in another country.

5.0
Friendly Team, Time Zone Challenges
Software Development Engineer (SDE) • Former Employee
San Jose, California, United States
November 23, 2025
Pros: The people here are friendly, and the food is good.
Cons: You need to get a meeting with the team based in another country.

Impactful Work, Little Balance

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

November 2, 2025

Pros: Great impact, large project, grow fast.

Cons: Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance.

3.0
Impactful Work, Little Balance
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Jose, California, United States
November 2, 2025
Pros: Great impact, large project, grow fast.
Cons: Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance. Low work-life balance.

Scale Fast, Docs Slow

Backend Engineer • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

October 30, 2025

Pros: Operates at an impressive scale. Iterate quickly and fail fast to build successful features.

Cons: Fast growth results in a slightly disorganized ecosystem. Lots of technical documentation is fragmented, repeated, and often outdated. Additionally, it is usually written in Chinese, with algorithmic translations available or a translated version of the doc (sometimes outdated!) also available.

3.0
Scale Fast, Docs Slow
Backend Engineer • Former Employee
San Jose, California, United States
October 30, 2025
Pros: Operates at an impressive scale. Iterate quickly and fail fast to build successful features.
Cons: Fast growth results in a slightly disorganized ecosystem. Lots of technical documentation is fragmented, repeated, and often outdated. Additionally, it is usually written in Chinese, with algorithmic translations available or a translated version of the doc (sometimes outdated!) also available.

TikTok Interview Questions

Subarray Sum Equals K

Determine the total number of continuous subarrays within a given array that sum up to a specific target value, k.

ArraysSliding Windows

Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

Find the length of the longest substring within a given string that contains no repeating characters. The substring must be contiguous.

StringsSliding Windows

Generate Parentheses

Given a number 'n', generate all possible well-formed (balanced) parentheses strings of length 2*n. For instance, if n=3, you need to create all valid combinations like '((()))', '(()())', etc.

RecursionStrings

Copyright © Taro