I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart in Jun 2021
Interview
After passing a pretty intense and long online coding screen, did the remote on-site that was 2 coding sessions, 1 system design and one bar raiser. Their standards seem quite high around the same as Google or Facebook, as shown by the level of difficulty of the coding questions. One of them can be considered a "hard" problem by leetcode standards. Interviewers also don't give you much hints or help during the coding rounds. System design round sort of expected you to be familiar with their personal shopping process, which I didn't think was that fair.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Implement string matching function with wildcards.
I'm sure it's easier to grade applicants with AI, but it'd be nice to have humans involved in the interview process, too. You'll face a couple of AI powered coding challenges. The bigger problems are the ethical implications here after looking into how the company works, with variable pricing based on data on how badly they can screw the consumer with upcharges and how to keep money in their pockets rather than the shoppers & drivers
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you could replace your family with AI, would you do it?
I applied online. I interviewed at Instacart (San Francisco, CA) in Feb 2026
Interview
First there is a codesignal test. This is for 90 minutes and felt frantic. Way too many features/code paths to implement.
Then there is the karat llm interview which is 50 minutes.
Then a full day of regular interview loop.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
For CodeSignal it was implementing a cache key store with timestamps. Started with basic setting and getting, then evolved into more advanced code. 4 different parts. Writing a lot of code for this.
For the LLM interview you work with a company called Karat. You are giving an VS code like workspace and an ai to help. You have 50 minutes. They then dump a large project in your space. For me it was a bus route simulator.
I was then asked to implement a feature : Have the system prioritize Priority Pass people. I used the LLM to track down the code and implement it, but it was difficult to test in code that is unknown to me. The next feature was implementing wheelchairs for the bus which requires special capacity checks.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Instacart (Toronto, ON) in Feb 2025
Interview
1. Online OA with codesignal to start with. Very standard and not hard
2. Got the 4 interview rounds and you can always divide into 2 parts of 2 interviews each. It was be 2 codesignals with medium difficulty and I managed to do both. One system design which was average for me and interviewer was okay as well. Behavioural round was standard. No wonder why I didn't manage to get the offer.