The overall interview process is very lousy. Too many interview steps for a small company that Instacart is - Online SQL Challenge, Phone Screen with Recruiter, Data Challenge, Phone Case Study and Final Panel Interview. On top of that they have extremely slow turnaround times. The recruiter is not very responsive, she only responds if you email 2-3 times and send emails to her colleagues and request them to follow up with her separately. Common courtesy is to atleast reply saying that they need more time to respond. She doesn't even tell you what type of interview it's going to be and how long it is going to last. I got out after the Phone Case Study round and was provided no feedback whatsoever and I invested more than a month interviewing with them. All this shows that company moves at the speed of a snail. The funniest part is I was told to expect a non Instacart business case in the phone interview and the interviewer asked questions such as "what do you think of Instacart business?" I am glad that I got out and didn't end up wasting more time with them. They should consider training their own employees first - the recruiter and also the person giving out case study. Have the interviewer do some preparation before and have him stick to the plan. After the interview process I firmly believe that all the negative reviews about the company are indeed true.

The first-round was a call with the hiring manager, then if passed will move to a test (SQL + case write-up) - technical skill is very very important for this position