Yelp

Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California

September 1, 2016

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

I was contacted by a recruiter to complete an initial HackerRank.

I passed the HackerRank (15 minutes, 1 question), an initial technical interview, and two final round interviews.

My recruiter and interviewers were kind, friendly people, and very quick to respond with next steps.

I received an offer about a week after my final interview.

Overall, a fast and great recruiting experience.

Questions

Emphasis on recursion and graph traversals.

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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

Great Managers, Some Tech Debt

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: The company has a great culture. Most teams have good work-life balance with limited on-call responsibilities. I've had several managers, and every single one listens to me and cares about me and my teammates. The remote work is also very nice.

Cons: My team does not suffer from this, but I've seen some teams struggle with tech debt because their management and PM does not want to take time to prioritize it. To an extent, this is on the ICs for not advocating for this well enough, but this becomes a problem for both future ICs and the productivity of the company at large.

Great Managers, Some Tech Debt

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: The company has a great culture. Most teams have good work-life balance with limited on-call responsibilities. I've had several managers, and every single one listens to me and cares about me and my teammates. The remote work is also very nice.

Cons: My team does not suffer from this, but I've seen some teams struggle with tech debt because their management and PM does not want to take time to prioritize it. To an extent, this is on the ICs for not advocating for this well enough, but this becomes a problem for both future ICs and the productivity of the company at large.

Great place to work

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

August 20, 2014

Pros: Comfortable office environment. Nice people. Bright future.

Cons: The current headquarter is a little bit compact.

Great place to work

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

August 20, 2014

Pros: Comfortable office environment. Nice people. Bright future.

Cons: The current headquarter is a little bit compact.

Very bad experience

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: 1. Competitive salary 2. There are some really fantastic engineers

Cons: 1. Fear-driven work culture 2. Disillusioned leadership 3. Terrible work hours, zero work-life balance 4. No regular lunches like in other companies

Very bad experience

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: 1. Competitive salary 2. There are some really fantastic engineers

Cons: 1. Fear-driven work culture 2. Disillusioned leadership 3. Terrible work hours, zero work-life balance 4. No regular lunches like in other companies

Great Managers, Some Tech Debt

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: The company has a great culture. Most teams have good work-life balance with limited on-call responsibilities. I've had several managers, and every single one listens to me and cares about me and my teammates. The remote work is also very nice.

Cons: My team does not suffer from this, but I've seen some teams struggle with tech debt because their management and PM does not want to take time to prioritize it. To an extent, this is on the ICs for not advocating for this well enough, but this becomes a problem for both future ICs and the productivity of the company at large.

5.0
Great Managers, Some Tech Debt
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
April 19, 2025
Pros: The company has a great culture. Most teams have good work-life balance with limited on-call responsibilities. I've had several managers, and every single one listens to me and cares about me and my teammates. The remote work is also very nice.
Cons: My team does not suffer from this, but I've seen some teams struggle with tech debt because their management and PM does not want to take time to prioritize it. To an extent, this is on the ICs for not advocating for this well enough, but this becomes a problem for both future ICs and the productivity of the company at large.

Great place to work

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

August 20, 2014

Pros: Comfortable office environment. Nice people. Bright future.

Cons: The current headquarter is a little bit compact.

5.0
Great place to work
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
August 20, 2014
Pros: Comfortable office environment. Nice people. Bright future.
Cons: The current headquarter is a little bit compact.

Very bad experience

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: 1. Competitive salary 2. There are some really fantastic engineers

Cons: 1. Fear-driven work culture 2. Disillusioned leadership 3. Terrible work hours, zero work-life balance 4. No regular lunches like in other companies

1.0
Very bad experience
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
June 17, 2015
Pros: 1. Competitive salary 2. There are some really fantastic engineers
Cons: 1. Fear-driven work culture 2. Disillusioned leadership 3. Terrible work hours, zero work-life balance 4. No regular lunches like in other companies

Yelp Interview Questions

Destination City

You are given a list of paths, where each path connects two cities. Find the destination city, which is the city that has a path coming in but no path going out.

ArraysStringsGraphs

Course Schedule

Determine if it is possible to finish all courses given prerequisite relationships between them. Essentially, detect if a cycle exists in the course dependencies.

GraphsRecursion

Filter Restaurants by Vegan-Friendly, Price and Distance

You're given a list of restaurants with their vegan-friendly status, price, and distance. Select the restaurants that match specified vegan, price, and distance criteria and return their IDs in sorted order.

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