The entire process was extremely long and exhausting. HR call, followed with separate coding assessment, then a separate system design and then 3 rounds interview. HR didn't know the details of the interview format or what to prepare, gave the wrong guide which is completely misleading and different from the actual interview. They ask to build frontend and backend within an hour including introduction and useless clarification, think out loud process. There's no enough time to finish the code, unless they are hiring AI instead of human.
The entire process was super slow, It took at least a week to hear from the previous round.
Preguntas de entrevista [1]
Pregunta 1
Coding assessments: 2 rounds with 1 dynamic programming. System design: design ledger system. App coding: build a spotify with user, songs, playlist with DB, table, backend, frontend within 50mins including clarification. Behavioral questions and another manager behavioral questions. They use ruby on rails and manager will ask lots of ruby on rails questions.
Interview experience is overall very good. You can lead the discussion but they have certain questions to ask. Can choose any tools for diagram. Really nice people and very polite.
Preguntas de entrevista [1]
Pregunta 1
Design a Online chess system design in first round.
Solicité el puesto a través de una agencia de empleo. Acudí a una entrevista en Upstart (Los Angeles, CA) en may 2026
Entrevista
Interview consisted of 2 recruiter calls, 1 technical coding screen with 2 LC Medium level problems but with decent follow up questions, then onsite that was: Systems Design, Hiring Manager/Behavioral, and Product Development interview. After passing on-site there was an exec VP chat.
Solicité el puesto a través de un captador. El proceso duró 1 día. Acudí a una entrevista en Upstart en abr 2026
Entrevista
What a weird interview, or recruiter call.
Recruiter joined the call and got my name wrong, so knew immediately this was going to go sideways. They told me absolutely nothing about the company what they do, what they’re looking for.
Then got basic questions about my career. The recruiter couldn’t really grasp that one man teams really do exist at disorganized companies, so I think they had trouble understanding what full stack actually means outside of upstart. They kept rewording questions trying get me to explain what my teammates do, when in reality I explained that I don’t have any.
Then was told of the next interview steps. A take home coding challenge, then a virtual onsite with atleast 3 more interviews and a live coding challenge. Then interviews (more than one) with team members. How many interviews are we doing here? Then they will ask for references, and doubled down on how they take those seriously. Lol, okay?
I was honestly out on Upstart after hearing the interview steps. Wasn’t surprised to get rejected 24hrs later.