The phone screen was surprisingly short, only about 20 minutes, focusing on my background and some general ML concepts. Then came the technical round where I had to design a ranking model for Instacart’s search results. Midway through, it hit me that I had just practiced a very similar problem on PracHub, which made me feel a bit more confident. However, the depth of the discussion, especially around metrics and cold-start items, was intense. In the end, I didn’t receive an offer, but it was a decent experience overall.
Otras evaluaciones sobre las entrevistas para el cargo de Machine Learning Engineer en Instacart
Me postulé en línea. Acudí a una entrevista en Instacart (New York, NY) en jun 2026
Entrevista
Started with HM interview, then Recruiter, then VO. HM was nice, and didn't ask many questions, just some background. Recruiter was incredibly unprofessional and didn't even show up to the scheduled meeting. Showed no respect for my time at all. I should have known it was a bad sign. As expected, they ghosted me after the VO.
Preguntas de entrevista [1]
Pregunta 1
Come up with a metric for this problem? Why is it a good metric compared to other metrics like Recall or Classification error?
Also had a coding round. Coding round was quite tough. I wasn't well prepared.
Me postulé a través de un reclutador. El proceso tomó 3 semanas. Acudí a una entrevista en Instacart (Toronto, ON) en sep 2025
Entrevista
1 round of HR screen, 4 rounds of technical
Technical:
- ML alg knowledge
- Live code - Leetcode style
- Case study: they give you a case
- Retro study: walk them through a past project