Pinterest Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 265 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Pinterest.
Pinterest
Software Engineer
Mid Difficult Positive experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Technical screen Technical screen
Interview formats
Coding Coding System Design Behavioral
The interview process started with a 45-minute round focusing on Data Structures and Algorithms. This was followed by a second round which included two 45-minute sessions on Data Structures and Algorithms, a 60-minute session on Architecture/System Design, and a 45-minute Competency session.
Confirmed questions3 questions
- Could you solve a problem involving Graphs?
- Tell me about a Greedy Algorithm question.
- Can you handle String Manipulations?
Pinterest
Software Engineer
Mid Easy Negative experience No offer 5 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Phone screen Onsite
Interview formats
Coding System Design Behavioral
Recruiter reached out. Had a phone screen and then 4 onsite rounds. The whole interview was a disaster. I've interviewed at many companies and received multiple offers, but Pinterest was awful. The people were good but unprepared. Except for the phone screen and manager round, all interviewers lacked good communication skills. For example, when I asked clarification questions, they struggled to answer and ended up misguiding me. In the middle of my implementation, they corrected themselves, which complicated the situation. Their feedback stated I lacked problem-solving ability, which is the opposite of my experience in Pinterest interviews and other FAANG/non-FAANG companies. I won't be interviewing or wasting my time there in the future.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Asked LC medium level questions
- Typical System Design questions asked
Pinterest
Software Engineer Apprentice
Entry Difficult Negative experience No offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Take home Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Coding Technical Behavioral
Here's how the process went down in 2025: First, there was an online assessment (you gotta hit a certain score to move on). Then, the first round was an easy LeetCode problem, but treat it like a real interview. Finally, the last round was a regular software engineer interview, plus some behavioral questions (just brush up on the STAR method).
Confirmed questions1 question
- What are your five-year career aspirations?
Pinterest Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Pinterest interview reports.
“Given a board game represented as a list of integers (e.g., [1, 3, 2, 0, 5, 2, 8, 4, 1]), where each number indicates how many squares to jump left or right from the current position, and a starting position `pos`, can you implement the function `def can_win(board, pos):` to determine if it's possible to reach a square with the value 0? Return True if possible, False otherwise.”
Read reports →“Given a 2D integer array `board` of size m x n, where each row has exactly 3 unique numbers, find the second most frequent number in each row and return an array of these numbers.”
Read reports →“When a button with an emoji is tapped, generate copies of the emoji that float upwards like balloons. If the button is held down, emojis should continue to be generated continuously until the finger is released.”
Read reports →“Write a job scheduler given a list of jobs with dependencies and output a list of jobs to be executed according to dependencies.”
Read reports →“What is the greatest number of connected 1s starting from a given cell in a matrix of 1s and 0s?”
Read report →“Given an array of objects, each with an id and a height property, distribute them into columns simulating the behavior of the Pinterest grid, such that the objects are positioned to balance the height of the columns.”
Read report →“Can you determine if a given string can be broken down into words from a dictionary and output the segmentation using the minimum number of words? For instance, with input 'aaaisaname' and dictionary ('a', 'aaa', 'is', 'name'), the correct output is 'aaa is a name', not 'a a a is a name'.”
Read report →“Given an NxN matrix with some cells marked as 'wall', when a non-wall cell is tapped, fill that cell with color and propagate the color to adjacent cells, avoiding crossing walls. The final result should be that all areas accessible from the starting point are colored, without crossing walls.”
Read report →“Given a set of words and phrases, and a key, implement an efficient autocomplete algorithm to find all the words and phrases that should be suggested.”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 265 Pinterest interview reports.