I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 days. I interviewed at Lyft (San Francisco, CA) in Aug 2015
Interview
First a phone chat, then a screen, then a 6-hour take-home assignment, then a 5-interview onsite panel of mostly whiteboard statistics and algorithms exercises. The former 3 were fine, the onsite was unpleasant. I was not given an offer, but I would not have gone to Lyft had I been given one, anyway.
A few of the people I met at Lyft seemed really great. But the rest, not so much. I was interviewed by one of the most abrasive and unpleasant people I've met in a long time. Thinking back, the degree to which he challenged everything I said, often with incorrect views of his own or nonsensical objections (e.g. challenging my dislike of the Uber "image" as compared to Lyft), was mind-boggling -- I can't imagine what it would be like to work with this guy.
My overall feeling of the interviews was that there was a "right answer" to nearly every question, and they did not have any room to entertain even perfectly-viable alternatives. In addition, they were looking for people who would fit right in to a specific role from day 1: more of a big-company approach than a small-company one.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
As a part of a bigger question: "How do you draw a uniform random sample from a circle in polar coordinates?"
Tackling a case involving a significant drop in monthly active riders kicked off the technical round, which felt quite intense. Then there was a probability question about commuter ride behavior, followed by an experiment design challenge focusing on marketplace balance. The behavioral portion was equally rigorous. Overall, it took about five weeks. Funny enough, I had spent the previous weekend pouring through the case-study section on PracHub, and it really helped me feel prepared. In the end, the process was tough but rewarding, and I’m glad to say I accepted the offer.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Investigate a 7% monthly active riders drop and a 20% wait-time increase
I applied through a staffing agency. I interviewed at Lyft
Interview
The first round is good, but the second round they asked me something about conditional probability, and ask you to solve a real problem within some time. It made me feel nervous, with two people staring at you
I applied online. I interviewed at Lyft (Toronto, ON) in Jun 2026
Interview
They scheduled an screening interview and then scheduled for a technical data science interview mostly on experimentation and stats + prob. They sent a blog about the interview which is basically about how to answer their questions.