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Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California

January 1, 2015
Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I directly contacted a recruiter for an advertised position and received an answer quickly.

I was invited for a first short interview with a tech recruiter (20 minutes, just some very general questions about my background) and another phone conversation with an engineer (25 minutes, also still very relaxed, mainly about my background and interests). I was not asked the "typical" questions mentioned here before.

After that, I was scheduled for a technical interview over Skype:

  • It lasted around 60 minutes (including a 30-minute code exercise with CoderPad).
  • 5 minutes were spent on background.
  • 15 minutes covered general tech questions (what happens when you type a URL into your browser, data structures/implementation and use, databases).
  • There was a 30-minute code exercise.
  • Another 10 minutes were allocated for me to ask questions.

Overall, it was a very pleasant interview process. Nothing was unexpected; the questions were not particularly hard, but I was not perfectly prepared.

Questions

Data structures Hash map Web technologies (make sure to understand this, since Yelp is a web company) Search algorithms Code exercise

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 92 interview experiences for the Yelp Software Engineer role in San Francisco, California.

Success Rate

14%
Pass Rate

Yelp's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in San Francisco, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive50%
Neutral32%
Negative18%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Yelp's Software Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.

Yelp Work Experiences