I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Upstart in Mar 2026
Interview
I was expedited through the process due to a referral, but never spoke directly to a recruiter. I only had a few emails. The recruiter was pleasant and accommodating. My first actual phase of the interview was to take an online technical assessment, comprised of four Leetcode style questions, all with different time limits, where afterwards, an AI reviewed my solutions and asked me a question about them where I had only two minutes to respond. Two of the questions were easy level, where the other two were more involved and only had 20 minutes to answer. None of these questions had anything to do with the industry or what the job would entail, so it felt incredibly disconnected. Of all the leetcode style assessments I have taken, this was by far the worst implementation of them.
Other Senior Software Engineer Interview Reviews for Upstart
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.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a Online chess system design in first round.
I applied through a staffing agency. I interviewed at Upstart (Los Angeles, CA) in May 2026
Interview
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.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Upstart in Apr 2026
Interview
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.
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