Vistar Media Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

It started with a recruiter screen to go over my background. Then there was a take-home assignment, followed by two panel interviews. The panels focused on system design and my general technical background, including specific questions. I got vague feedback and was ultimately rejected. I'd personally caution against applying; the whole interview process felt really unclear about what they were even looking for.

It was a pretty amateur experience and I would caution people to watch for the case study/presentation round, which in my experience was just an excuse to get senior people to do free work for them. The process is described as interactive, but be prepared to present while answering a few questions, not interactive in the slightest. If your gut is telling you that the case study is way too specific for the company (they will tell you that Vistar cannot benefit from it, which is an obvious lie) and that it's probably just them trying to get you to do free work, follow your instincts. Half the people during the presentation were on their phones/doing other work and could not have cared less.

The interview process was really smooth and straightforward. Vistar was great to interview with. It started with a recruiter reaching out and asking some basic questions about my background and fit. Then, there was a take-home assignment with some writing prompts to check my writing style. The take-home was time-limited but I could spend as much time as I wanted on it. It wasn't too hard and I could find resources online for some parts. I actually enjoyed the take-home assignment because it was interesting. After that was accepted, I had two interviews back-to-back. The first was a quick algo question, not too complicated, just to see my thought process. It was a clean, collaborative coding session with time for questions at the end. The second hour was a systems design interview, which I didn't do great on because I don't have much experience in that area. However, I learned a lot, and the recruiter sent helpful feedback from the interviewers afterward. Everyone at Vistar was a pleasure to work with, and I really appreciated the opportunity. No unexpected difficulties or overly complex LeetCode-style problems that you wouldn't use on the job.