I applied online. I interviewed at Starbucks in Jan 2026
Interview
I applied online and completed an online assessment which included SQL and Data Science programming questions. I passed the assessment and had an initial recruiter call where the next interview rounds were explained (intro call with hiring manager, technical case study, behavioral).
After this, there were multiple follow-ups from my side as the process was delayed due to the hiring manager being on vacation. Eventually, I received a rejection email stating that they would not be moving forward due to having many qualified candidates — without ever scheduling the hiring manager interview.
It was disappointing to invest time preparing for multiple rounds after passing the assessment, only to be rejected without any actual interview or feedback. Clearer communication and respect for candidates’ time would greatly improve the experience.
Pros: Structured online assessment, recruiter was responsive initially
Cons: Lack of transparency, process ended without interviews or feedback
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. SQL - joins, CTEs/subqueries, functions
2. Build a ML model from scratch on the given dataset - data exploration to bulding model.
Thank you for your feedback. We're sorry to hear about your experience and appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We strive to create a positive candidate journey and will take your comments into account as we continue to improve.
Other Data Scientist interview reviews for Starbucks
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Starbucks (Seattle, WA) in Dec 2025
Interview
after a month received OA, 90 minutes, then recruiter round then maybe some steps to for the interview process. i wasnt move forwarded after the OA. So don’t know. I hope that helps.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
OA Required which included, SQL, Python, and 2 stats questions. SQL (med) , and Stats were easy, but the python, it was almost impossible to do so if you are not smart af or are not good cheating with AI. It was an entry level role, and they wanted me to build a machine learning model in random forrest for features, from SCRATCH, no syntax you can look up, doing the whole pipeling and building model to predict things in 90 minutes where you have to do sql and other 2 questions too. I feel it stupid task to ask in this era.
Thank you for sharing your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and understand your frustration. At Starbucks, we strive to provide every candidate with a fair and respectful opportunity throughout the hiring process. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention and will take your feedback into consideration as we work to improve our candidate experience.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Starbucks (Seattle, WA) in Nov 2025
Interview
Interview was short and sweet. They asked questions like predictive modelling in python and some queries in SQL as well as questions from Stats and Probability. Overall it was moderate to difficult.
