Taro Logo

Software Engineer Interview Experience - Foster City, California

August 29, 2019
Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Take-home coding challenge (just LeetCode questions), phone screen (questions about Java and very simple coding question that's more design and less "LeetCode"), and onsite.

One of the interviewers was completely emotionless and seemed like he really didn't want to be there. He also was really rude and kept telling me to "just stop talking [about my thought process] and write code."

Another interviewer was on his phone during the interview.

Most of the interviewers were kind, though. I think the negative rounds really cancel out the positive because they were very unenjoyable.

It was also very hard to get an idea of how the company is doing. A lot of time was spent explaining why not to work at Zoox's competitors as opposed to why one should work at Zoox.

Questions

One onsite round was brain teasers because this, of course, lets them know that you are very smart, just like them, who also are very smart.

Most of them are math-related, but a couple aren't.

Most coding rounds were honestly just a lazy copy and paste from a group of medium-hard Leetcode questions. One coding round is linear algebra heavy.

Not really a hard question, but it's one of those things where unless you routinely brush up on your linear algebra skills or have a math background, you might not come to a solution.

A lot of their questions have a sort of trick and aren't really the type you'd be able to solve without practicing similar problems or already knowing the solution beforehand.

Seems like they are less interested in thought process and critical thinking skills (aside from the brainteaser round) and more interested in if you know/get the solutions to their variety of questions within an abnormally shorter amount of time than other places.

Was this helpful?

Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 6 interview experiences for the Zoox Software Engineer role in Foster City, California.

Success Rate

33%
Pass Rate

Zoox's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Foster City, California is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive67%
Neutral17%
Negative17%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Zoox's Software Engineer interview process in Foster City, California.

Zoox Work Experiences