Instacart Software Engineer Interview Questions

24+ Instacart Software Engineer interview questions drawn from real candidate reports. Sources include 1Point3Acres, Blind, Glassdoor, Reddit, and LeetCode. Questions span every stage of the Instacart Software Engineer loop: OA, phone screen, system design, behavioral, and onsite coding.

What to Expect in the Instacart Software Engineer Interview

The Instacart Software Engineer interview process typically runs 4 to 6 rounds depending on seniority level. Based on candidate reports in the LeakCode database, the loop usually includes a resume review, an online assessment or coding phone screen, one or more technical rounds, a system design round (for senior and above), and a behavioral or values round.

Difficulty skews toward medium and hard LeetCode-style problems in the coding rounds. System design questions test breadth (component selection, scaling, trade-off reasoning) more than deep implementation. Behavioral questions are tied to the company's stated values and principles.

Instacart Software Engineer Questions (Sample)

instacart full stack take home ai test in onsite interview process

onsite 2026 1p3a

做完OA后,recruiter介绍了oniste流程。onsite1 是2轮真人code面试,一轮take home的AI测试。请问有人做过这个take home的吗?而且我申请的是后端,给了我这个full stack测试,问recruiter,他说就是这个。 请问有人有做过这个吗

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instacart tech phone screen experience: karat interview insights

phone screen 2026 1p3a

看了很多地里的面经 大家一面都是codesignal OA 就我是karat一面 完全找不到面经... recruiter只告诉我是30分钟system design + 20分钟coding + 10分钟Q&A 面完了两周后收到拒信 非常难受 发个面经作为分享 如果你也是karat一面 希望能帮助到 总体感觉就是 要快快快! SD和coding都是很简单很简单的题目 不要画时间在clarify和想深入问题上面 主要考察完成度 SD: 设计一个存放asset的storage system, asset 包括text, image, video 只要求画high level design 其他都不需要 不要花时间和他讨论clarify问题 也不要API data model那些 就直接画方块图就可以了 他只要那个流程图 画完后,他随便挑3个component让你解释是干什么用的,你用什么系统,limitation在哪里,有什么优缺点 语速也要快 Coding: 属于有手就会,非常简单 不要想复杂 时间特别紧张 只有20分钟 题目还特别长 我做完第二题还没来得及run就时间到了...

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instacart fulltime software engineer onsite interview experience

onsite 2026 1p3a

coding1 decode password,刷过,写的比较快,面试官很 nice,聊了怎么 refactor for prod。 coding2 Find Minimal Shoppers,binary search 套 heap simulation,做出来了。 Karat 那轮极度不爽。面试官推进特别快,AI 吐出来的答案特别长,一下子找不到自己代码了,完全不知道在干什么。 两轮 coding 感觉还好,Karat 就不知道怎么评价了。。。

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Interview Experience at Instacart Toronto : Seeking Clearer Feedback After a Positive Process

oa 2024 reddit

I recently completed the interview process at Instacart (Toronto), starting with an online assessment, followed by a recruiter call, two coding rounds, a system design round, and a behavioral intervie

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#1701 Average Waiting Time

coding medium lc_company

LeetCode #1701: Average Waiting Time. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Simulation. Asked at Instacart in the last 6 months.

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#34 Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array

coding medium lc_company

LeetCode #34: Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Binary Search. Asked at Instacart in the last 6 months.

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#49 Group Anagrams

coding medium lc_company

LeetCode #49: Group Anagrams. Difficulty: Medium. Topics: Array, Hash Table, String, Sorting. Asked at Instacart in the last 6 months.

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Design an In-Memory Database with Field-Level TTL, Prefix Scan, and Backup/Restore

coding easy 1p3a_oj

Design and implement an **in-memory database** keyed by `key` (unique per record). Each record contains multiple `field -> value` pairs, where both `field` and `value` are strings. Implement the foll

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Count Subarrays With Alternating Parity (Odd/Even) Including Negatives

coding 1p3a_oj

Given an integer array `nums` (may contain negative numbers), count how many **contiguous subarrays** have strictly alternating parity between adjacent elements. Formally, a subarray `nums[l..r]` is

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Flip Inner Segment If String Starts and Ends With Vowels

coding 1p3a_oj

Given an array of strings `arr`, transform each string `s` as follows and return the resulting array: - If both the first and last characters of `s` are vowels, reverse (mirror) the inner substring o

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Compute counts on nested maps (Level 1/Level 2 aggregation)

coding 1p3a_oj

You are given a data structure consisting of nested maps (dictionaries/JSON objects). The data has the notion of “Level 1” and “Level 2” (corresponding to two specific nesting layers). Compute and ou

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Bus Boarding Simulation (Priority + Wheelchair Capacity)

coding 1p3a_oj

Implement a bus boarding simulator with regular riders, priority boarding, and wheelchair constraints. Design and implement functions/classes to support the following (progressive) requirements: ##

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Evaluate an Arithmetic Expression

coding 1p3a_oj

Given a string `expr` representing an arithmetic expression, evaluate it. **Rules** - `expr` contains non-negative integers, operators `+ - * /`, parentheses `(` `)`, and spaces. - Operator precedenc

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Decode an Encoded String

coding 1p3a_oj

Given an encoded string `s` with the rule: - The encoding format is `k[encoded_string]`, meaning `encoded_string` is repeated exactly `k` times. - `k` is a positive integer. - `encoded_string` may it

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In-Memory Database with Backup and Restore

coding 1p3a_oj

## Problem: In-Memory Database with Backup and Restore Design and implement a simplified in-memory database that supports read/write on key-values and also supports **backup** and **restore**. ### D

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Difficulty Breakdown

3

medium

2

0

1

easy

Based on 24 questions with difficulty labels from candidate reports.

Interview Rounds

Here is how the Instacart Software Engineer questions in the LeakCode database break down by interview round, based on what candidates reported:

Round Questions in Database
coding 18
system design 2
onsite 2
phone screen 1
oa 1

Most Common Topics

arrays (5) strings (4) sql (3) system design (2) heap (1) hash table (1) binary search (1)

Question Recency

3

2026

1

2024

Question counts by interview year, based on candidate-reported dates.

How to Prepare for the Instacart Software Engineer Interview

Use the LeakCode question database as your primary research tool. Filter by role (Software Engineer), then by round type to focus your prep on the specific stages in your upcoming loop. Sort by recency to see what 2026 candidates actually faced.

  • Start with questions from the last 12 months. Interview processes change and recent data is the strongest signal.
  • Cross-reference questions that appear in multiple sources (1p3a, Blind, Glassdoor). Multi-source confirmation means a question has stronger recurrence probability.
  • For system design rounds: focus on the question patterns, not individual questions. The same design principles recur across many prompts.
  • For behavioral rounds: map your experiences to the company's stated values before the interview. Most behavioral questions at top companies are derivatives of a small set of core leadership competencies.

FAQ

How many Instacart Software Engineer questions are in the database?

24+ questions from verified candidate reports. The count grows as new reports are scraped daily from 1Point3Acres, Blind, Glassdoor, Reddit, and LeetCode.

Are these questions from real Instacart interviews?

Yes. All questions are sourced from actual candidate interview reports, not generated by AI. Each entry links back to its source URL where available, and questions are tagged with the year and round reported by the candidate.

How current is this data?

LeakCode updates daily. The database is filtered to exclude duplicate and low-quality entries. You can filter by interview year to focus on recent cycles.

Does LeakCode cover Instacart OA questions specifically?

Yes. The database includes online assessment questions tagged with round type. See the Instacart OA page for a dedicated view.

Related: Instacart All Questions · Instacart OA Questions · Browse All Companies · Data Sources