Research Scientist applicants have rated the interview process at ByteDance with 2.7 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 38% positive. To compare, the company-average is 49% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Research Scientist roles take an average of 40 days to get hired, when considering 13 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at ByteDance overall takes an average of 26 days.
Common stages of the interview process at ByteDance as a Research Scientist according to 13 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 25%
Skills test: 18%
Phone interview: 18%
Presentation: 14%
Group panel interview: 11%
Background check: 7%
Other: 4%
Personality test: 4%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
Interviewed for the applied research scientist in recommendations position - there were 3 rounds - first 2 coding, last one was coding + research discussion. Overall, for a research position, seemed too heavy on coding - but it seemed it did not depend on how you performed, but whether the director round (who took one of the rounds) liked your background. Similar to most research orgs - bias for university tier and if you have published in NeurIPS, ICML, KDD and if they knew you.
- easy leet code style code test
- ask about research experience
- talk a lot about view of current tech and future improvement
- ask the implementation of some basic algorithms
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at ByteDance (San Jose, CA) in Apr 2025
Interview
The interview process is very smooth, about 1-2 rounds per week with a total of 4 rounds. The first 3 are technical rounds that include both project deep-dive and leetcode questions. The last 1 is a hiring manager round and the HM introduced projects on the team.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How will you design an audio-visual AI system that mark the sound source in the video?
HR interview - HR gives overview about the interview process, introduces the team, and describes the role
Leet code - actual programming test
ML interviews - general ML and specific domain knowledge
Manager interview
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Leetcode question: dynamic programming for alignment