TikTok

Software Engineer (Internship) Interview Experience

September 28, 2026

Neutral ExperienceNo Offer

Process

The first-round technical interview consisted of two LeetCode-type questions hosted on HackerRank, where the interviewer could see you type live. It was 45 minutes, but it finished early. There was no behavioral component whatsoever, and I haven't heard back yet.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 199 interview experiences for the TikTok Software Engineer (Internship) role.

Success Rate

10%

Pass Rate

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

Experience Rating

Positive41%

Neutral47%

Negative12%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for TikTok's Software Engineer (Internship) interview process.

TikTok Work Experiences

Fast-growing company

Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

Pros: The people and benefits are pretty much it. You get to meet fun and amazing people and collaborate with them as well. Everyone is supportive to an extent.

Cons: As much as they don't say it, they have a "996" type of culture. It isn't really good for work-life balance. Majority of the people you need to communicate with are overseas. Documentation is also made from overseas, so you can imagine translation and communication is tremendously difficult.

Fast-growing company

Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

Pros: The people and benefits are pretty much it. You get to meet fun and amazing people and collaborate with them as well. Everyone is supportive to an extent.

Cons: As much as they don't say it, they have a "996" type of culture. It isn't really good for work-life balance. Majority of the people you need to communicate with are overseas. Documentation is also made from overseas, so you can imagine translation and communication is tremendously difficult.

Quick Growth, Bad Balance

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

December 20, 2024

Pros: You can grow quickly in different aspects.

Cons: Bad work-life balance and bad culture.

Quick Growth, Bad Balance

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

December 20, 2024

Pros: You can grow quickly in different aspects.

Cons: Bad work-life balance and bad culture.

Compensation is good; cultural issues are a concern

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Promoted relatively quickly. Happy with compensation, free food, and good benefits.

Cons: Lots of involvement with the overseas team. Lots of on-call expectations.

Compensation is good; cultural issues are a concern

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Promoted relatively quickly. Happy with compensation, free food, and good benefits.

Cons: Lots of involvement with the overseas team. Lots of on-call expectations.

Fast-growing company

Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

Pros: The people and benefits are pretty much it. You get to meet fun and amazing people and collaborate with them as well. Everyone is supportive to an extent.

Cons: As much as they don't say it, they have a "996" type of culture. It isn't really good for work-life balance. Majority of the people you need to communicate with are overseas. Documentation is also made from overseas, so you can imagine translation and communication is tremendously difficult.

3.0
Fast-growing company
Engineer • Current Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
August 1, 2022
Pros: The people and benefits are pretty much it. You get to meet fun and amazing people and collaborate with them as well. Everyone is supportive to an extent.
Cons: As much as they don't say it, they have a "996" type of culture. It isn't really good for work-life balance. Majority of the people you need to communicate with are overseas. Documentation is also made from overseas, so you can imagine translation and communication is tremendously difficult.

Quick Growth, Bad Balance

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

December 20, 2024

Pros: You can grow quickly in different aspects.

Cons: Bad work-life balance and bad culture.

3.0
Quick Growth, Bad Balance
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Jose, California, United States
December 20, 2024
Pros: You can grow quickly in different aspects.
Cons: Bad work-life balance and bad culture.

Compensation is good; cultural issues are a concern

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Promoted relatively quickly. Happy with compensation, free food, and good benefits.

Cons: Lots of involvement with the overseas team. Lots of on-call expectations.

3.0
Compensation is good; cultural issues are a concern
Software Engineer • Current Employee
July 9, 2023
Pros: Promoted relatively quickly. Happy with compensation, free food, and good benefits.
Cons: Lots of involvement with the overseas team. Lots of on-call expectations.

TikTok Interview Questions

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

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.

StringsTwo PointersSliding Windows

Search in Rotated Sorted Array

You're given a sorted array that has been rotated, and a target value. Find the index of the target value in the rotated array, or return -1 if it's not present.

ArraysBinary Search

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