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THE doordash INTERVIEW
Looking to land a job at DoorDash but don’t know what the process looks like?
Well, you’ve come to the right place. Detailed in this post is a look at the timeline of the interview process, preparation guidelines, and what's different or unique about DoorDash's interview process as opposed to other tech companies.
THE doordash INTERVIEW explained
BACKGROUND
In the DoorDash interview you will face around 8 interviews testing you on: programming ability, technical and architectural knowledge as well as determining how the values Slack cares about fit with your own.
BEFORE THE INTERVIEW
update your RESUME
Make sure you’ve updated your resume and in particular your LinkedIn profile; use deliverables and metrics when you can as they are concrete examples of what you’ve accomplished. Make sure to be as specific as possible.
PREPARATION
Here is our guide on how to prepare for the coding interview with a 12-week plan.
CHOOSING YOUR LANGUAGE
DoorDash does not require that you know any specific programming language before interviewing for a tech position. However, you should be familiar with the syntax of your preferred language such as Java, Python, C#, C/C++. You should also know some of the languages’ nuances, such as how memory management works, or the most commonly used collections, libraries, etc. Choose one you’re most comfortable with and stick to it.
screen with technical recruiter
After reviewing your resume, you’ll be paired with a recruiter who will be your guide through the interview process at DoorDash. This will be a 30 minute conversation.
technical coding exercise
Here you will be administered a coding challenge through HackerRank or a comparable platform. The types of questions you face will be typical data structures and algorithms varying in difficulty.
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You should feel comfortable using, as well as understanding, the key differences and applications of the following data structures:
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Lists
This list doesn’t imply other data structures won’t be included in the interview, it just means the ones listed above tend to be more commonly covered. I also highly recommend candidates be well-versed with the worst, best, and average runtime complexities for inserting, removing, and finding elements in all data structures they feel comfortable using.
ON-site interview
Coding Rounds (2)
Be prepared to face a couple coding rounds in your onsite interview. You should study as many data structures and algorithms as possible in order to increase your chances.
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Ideally, DoorDash wants you to complete the problem and all associated subproblems successfully without any help from the interviewer. However, you should keep the interviewer informed about what you are trying to accomplish by describing key decision steps while answering a question.
Here are some examples:
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“We can use a stack for this solution because…”
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“We can use an in-order tree traversal for this question because…”
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“I may have missed some edge cases, let me take a closer look at my solution.”
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“I can think of a solution in O(N2) time doing X, but I think we can have a linear solution here. I’d like to take a minute to think through an approach.”
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System Design
This will be more of a discussion between you and the interviewer, where you will be asked to design a system that can scale. Typical questions include:
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Design a TinyURL
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Design Facebook Newsfeed
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Design Instagram
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For example, here are some things you should keep in mind as you think about designing Instagram:
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What is Instagram?
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Requirements and Goals of the System
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Some Design Considerations
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Capacity Estimation and Constraints
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High Level System Design
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Database Schema
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Data Size Estimation
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Component Design
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Reliability and Redundancy
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Data Sharding
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Ranking and News Feed Generation
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News Feed Creation with Sharded Data
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Cache and Load balancing
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Hiring Manager
Be prepared to talk about past projects, their impact, and what problems and solutions you faced. For interviews like this, it's encouraged to follow the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result). This will present the interviewer with a solid understanding of how you work and what types of problems you faced.
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This is also a good time to get a feeling for what DoorDash is working on and what the team looks like. It's best to come with a list of questions you plan on asking as it's also a time for you to interview them.
THE OFFER / NO offer
From on-site to offer will take about another week or two. This is so management can either evaluate other candidates or to draft up your offer letter along with other logistics.
In the event that you don’t receive an offer, you’ll most likely have to wait six months to a year to re-apply. Don’t expect any feedback after your interview, but you can conclude that you either didn’t have enough experience or that it just wasn’t a fit culturally.
If you do receive a job offer, the hiring manager will call you to discuss salary, start date, etc.
Need help preparing for the interview?
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Check out the Definitive Interview Prep Roadmap,
written and reviewed by real hiring managers.