I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Pinterest (San Francisco, CA) in Mar 2022
Interview
Applied through a referral. Did an initial recruiter screen focused on why I was interested in Pinterest, then scheduled an initial technical screen for a month out. Had the phone screen over Hangouts and did not pass it.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. What's more difficult to optimize - nonconvex or convex?
2. What activation function does better with vanishing gradient - ReLU or sigmoid?
3. Does vanishing gradient happen closer to the beginning or end of the neural network?
4. medium-level backtracking question
Thank you for interviewing at Pinterest. We’re glad you considered us in your job search and wish you the best of luck in the future. If you have any additional details that you’d like to share, send us an email at gd@pinterest.com.
Pinterest Recruiting
Other Machine Learning Engineer interview reviews for Pinterest
The phone screen was a mix of behavioral questions and some basic technical concepts, which was a bit different from what I anticipated. After that, I faced a technical round that focused on implementing sparse matrix operations. To my surprise, the coding question was nearly identical to what I'd practiced in the algorithm section on PracHub just days before. The onsite interview included some more DSA challenges and a discussion on machine learning concepts, which helped me feel well-prepared. Overall, the experience was smooth, and I accepted the offer afterward.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Implement sparse matrix storage, addition, and multiplication
The assessment time was very short and harsh. There were lots of questions with a very limited time. I liked the other big companies' assessments better. For example, Meta and Google assessments are through talking to a person while coding.
I applied for the new grad MLE position. The process included an online assessment, a 20-minute HR call, and four onsite interviews (two coding and two machine learning system design).
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