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      Senior Software Engineer Interview

      Apr 8, 2022
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Upstart in Apr 2022

      Interview

      Phoner with hiring manager who asks one leetcode medium, behavioral questions, and some light software design. Recruiters are quite nice and the scheduling process is not difficult. Onsite was awful. You're expected to do two LC medium-hards in an hour w/ no hints. One being one of the most downvoted questions on LC. The questions and possibly the test cases were literally copy & pasted from leetcode. I knew the first but not the second. Coderpad was also running choppy. The second technical round is a "project" round. They instruct you to come prepared with a boilerplate app in which you need to implement a simple set of specifications. Think a toy todo list app. I had set up a Sinatra app with ActiveRecord beforehand, but at the beginning of the interview, I made a mistake naming my models while initially migrating the db. To continue with my example, I named my "list item" class "ListItem." This threw off the ActiveRecord relations, as it read my naming as implied namespacing in a way that was difficult to debug. Classic ActiveRecord/Rails burn. While debugging, my interviewer gave me counterproductive suggestions--he thought Sinatra wasn't loading classes properly. I eventually figured the issue out and renamed the table, but didn't have time to complete the remaining views & endpoints. There's an API/systems design round. I didn't get feedback here and would be surprised if it was negative. I'd describe this question as oriented toward the design of an application than a "system at scale." The hiring manager round is the sort where you're on the hook to ask questions the entire time.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      "Do 2 difficult LC's in less than an hour"
      Answer question
      5

      Other Senior Software Engineer interview reviews for Upstart

      Senior Software Engineer Interview

      Jun 2, 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Upstart

      Interview

      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.
      Answer question

      Senior Software Engineer Interview

      May 30, 2026
      Anonymous employee
      Los Angeles, CA
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      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.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Describe a technically deep project in detail.
      Answer question

      Sr. Software Engineer Interview

      Apr 16, 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      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.