Synthesized from 8 candidate submissions for ALL.
TikTok’s interview process is highly technical, with a strong emphasis on algorithmic problem-solving, system design, and scalability awareness. Candidates for mid-level and senior roles (e.g., SDE-2) are expected to demonstrate deep expertise in designing high-scale systems, often handling millions of transactions per second, while new grads and interns face rigorous coding assessments with a mix of LeetCode-style problems and practical frontend or ML-specific challenges.
The candidate applied for an SDE-1 position at TikTok Poland and went through three rounds of interviews, but was ultimately rejected. The candidate felt they did relatively well but could have improved in system design and coherence of thought process.
Initial call with recruiter to discuss experience and common questions
Are you familiar with C++?
Technical and system design round, focusing on data consistency and edge cases
How to store big amounts of data in a database
What are smart pointers
LeetCode problem: Simplify Path
Technical round with a LeetCode hard question
LeetCode problem: Reconstruct Itinerary
Applied for ML intern position, had an online assessment with Leetcode problems
Leetcode problems
First round online assessment
https://leetcode.com/problems/customers-with-maximum-number-of-transactions-on-consecutive-days/description/
https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-replacements-to-sort-the-array/description/
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