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Software Engineer Interview Experience

October 14, 2026
Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I applied online. The process took four weeks.

I had two sequential rounds of technical interviews. Both rounds were with engineers from China, and so due to the time difference the interviews were all scheduled late in the evening. In the first round, the engineer immediately asked me if I could speak Mandarin and introduce myself in Chinese. Then we got to the interview problem, which was around a LC Medium. After a few days of waiting for the recruiter to get back to me, because their communication isn't the speediest, we finally scheduled a second round. However, the interviewer didn't show up for the scheduled time, and we had to reschedule the second round. The second round was particularly difficult, maybe due to the language barrier. There were a lot of specific technical questions that were out of my domain.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 606 interview experiences for the TikTok Software Engineer role.

Success Rate

6%
Pass Rate

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

Experience Rating

Positive33%
Neutral46%
Negative22%

Candidates reported having good feelings for TikTok's Software Engineer interview process.

TikTok Work Experiences