I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Instacart in Feb 2021
Interview
Went through a few rounds, your standard screener, stats questions, ML questions, open problem data questions. Included an at home exercise with simulated data that would then be used for one round of business presentation style question.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given data set about A/B test of early background checks for deliverers, investigate whether there is an impact on recruitment and do some cost benefits analysis.
Faced a deep technical challenge during the interview, asked to design a personalization algorithm for product recommendations. I walked them through feature engineering and model choices, which stressed me out initially. Luckily, I realized the structure was almost identical to a problem I had explored on prachub.com while prepping. The interview progressed through a behavioral round where they focused on my previous experiences, and I ultimately received an offer, but decided to decline after careful consideration. Overall, it was intense but rewarding.
It was pretty straightforward. HR and then technicals. The technicals were a mix of statistics and math questions. Overall, it moved pretty quickly. My interviewer was quite late with no apology and in general not very friendly. I knew someone interviewing at the same time and they had a much better experience and recieved the same questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Suppose we wanted to launch 15-minute deliveries in a specific area where we already deliver. How would you statistically test the results?
