I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart in Oct 2024
Interview
HM call, recruiter call, then four-round onsites with some standard stuff (ML, behavioural, and coding) split over a week. I would describe it as moderate difficulty (as someone else has already said). Unlike some other companies they do not ask LC hards. I cannot give more specifics as I signed an NDA. Spent around a month and a half in the process overall.
The outcome was a rejection. Recruiter and HM made it clear that the interview performance was strong and the main reason for the rejection was the amount of competition; other candidates just had better experience. I feel like if experience was going to be the sticking point in the end they should have just resume-rejected me as it would have saved time for all parties involved.
That being said, they were very nice people and the process and interview expectations were cleanly laid out. This was my first MLE interview post-grad-school so it was a great learning experience. My advice for anyone interviewing is to carefully read over the materials provided by the recruiter.
The phone screen was surprisingly short, only about 20 minutes, focusing on my background and some general ML concepts. Then came the technical round where I had to design a ranking model for Instacart’s search results. Midway through, it hit me that I had just practiced a very similar problem on PracHub, which made me feel a bit more confident. However, the depth of the discussion, especially around metrics and cold-start items, was intense. In the end, I didn’t receive an offer, but it was a decent experience overall.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON) in Sep 2025
Interview
1 round of HR screen, 4 rounds of technical
Technical:
- ML alg knowledge
- Live code - Leetcode style
- Case study: they give you a case
- Retro study: walk them through a past project
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON) in Feb 2025
Interview
There are four round in total:
1 code (leetcode easy level)
2 ML concept (focus on fundamental traditional ML stuff)
3 ML system design
4 BQ and project
NDA signed for last two rounds. But the recruiter will tell you the expected topic
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Basic ML concept like l1 l2 norm/loss. concept like recall precision etc.