Peloton Interactive Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process started with a recruiter call, where I was told to reach out with any questions. Unfortunately, my follow-up emails went unanswered until I contacted a colleague, and even then, the recruiter claimed the emails went to spam, which seemed unlikely given the context. This was frustrating, especially recalling a previous negative experience with a Peloton recruiter. Next was an initial 1-hour technical interview on CoderByte, which was React-based and surprisingly easy; I passed despite not acing it. This was followed by a 45-minute hiring manager interview, which felt conversational and went well, but ultimately didn't seem to influence the outcome. The process then moved to a panel interview, which consisted of several parts. First, a 1-hour technical deep dive on CoderByte, which was challenging due to a convoluted system architecture involving many similar models and a large test file. The questions seemed designed to make me fail, and the feedback was about my testing experience, despite my extensive background in it. Then, a 30-minute product interview with an unknown interviewer, which felt like a standard behavioral "tell me a time when you" type of question. Following that was a 30-minute QA/SDET interview, which was unexpectedly intense for a role that wasn't specifically SDET. Finally, a 1-hour system design interview that was more of a discussion, where I felt I was interviewing junior engineers and had to guide the conversation. Despite this, I was rejected. The recruiter became unresponsive, but I did get some feedback from the hiring manager, with whom I felt most aligned. I believe interviewing for this role was a mistake given my experience level.

I was first reached out by a recruiter on LinkedIn. The initial chat was cancelled by the recruiter last minute, but we eventually had a phone call. After that, I was scheduled to speak with the Hiring Manager, who also had to reschedule. When we finally connected, the hiring manager seemed really excited about moving forward. But then I was ghosted, which was super unprofessional.

I have nothing but great things to say about Peloton, and I’ve never felt more supported in any SWE recruiting process than I did with Peloton. Peloton was consistently accommodating in rescheduling my interview to make it work despite my health challenges. When I had my first interviewing round, I felt really nervous and had a mini panic attack and thought I blew my chance to show my technical skillset, Peloton offered me a re-interview, with no hassle and no questions asked, and I felt like my second interview was a lot more reflective of my ability as a candidate. On my next interview with the EPM, I was surprised and thought it was so refreshing that I had a woman in a position of leadership interviewing me despite the unfortunate systemic gender representation disparity in big tech. That gave me a positive signal that made me feel more at ease as I continued to interview with Peloton. On my next 2 interviews with 2 engineers from the team, I felt so safe and comforted to have interviewed and chatted with 2 black engineers, back to back. I can’t tell you how much more relaxed I was and how much of a positive signal it meant to me as the candidate, as someone who doesn’t always feel like they belong in tech, for this team to have so many brilliant under-represented minority members in tech and the prospect of working with. After I received the verbal offer from my recruiter, she gave me so, so much flexibility and respected my timeline and space (giving me both a full 2 weeks as well as a 1 week extension) to make my decision. I ended pursuing another opportunity due to a career path change but highly recommend Peloton to any SWE.