HR Interview with recruiter - went fine.
Technical phone screen of 60+ minutes. Problem asked was to implement a chat client that interfaced via telnet. Simply make a server that has a socket based listener and then can send all the messages it receives from multiple clients. No need to keep much state - just spam all messages received to everyone else. No history or anything.
Problem with this is that the problem statement presumes you have a working dev environment. I didn't when they asked this question - so I had to setup an entire dev environment, get multithreaded programming going in a language I never do multithreaded programming in, and use sockets in a language that I've never used sockets in. All the while, my firewall was blocking local telnet connections and various other things. Basically, this problem sucks and doesn't test your coding ability or even your ability to learn from documentation. (Who learns from documentation in such a short period of time?? No one!)
It was all pretty dumb. I know leetcode has its issues but the interviewer was mostly useless in directing me where to go with this one. Be careful what language you choose with this - as you will be the victim of whatever documentation it has around multithreading+sockets. Some languages are much better than others.
Before I had even interviewed with discord, I had an offer in-hand and had done many onsites + phone screens at other companies. It just wasn't a good test of skills I use day-to-day or in interviews.
I applied online. I interviewed at Discord in Apr 2026
Interview
phone screen, AI allowed interview. Pretty sure I failed this because I let the AI do the system design for me, and just agreed with what it had. Practice system design before going in.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Discord in Jun 2025
Interview
I was not at all impressed by the interview process. The recruiter is slow to work with, and even if they do get you scheduled, the technical screen is pretty much pointless. Even if you arrive at a good solution, you may or may not move onto the six-round onsite.
I moved onto the technical screen call and did exactly what the interviewer wanted me to, yet was unable to move onto the onsite round. I did not enjoy the interview, really, as it was more of a coding monkey challenge.. not much back and forth discussion.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Code up a small server side application, test using multiple clients
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Discord (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2026
Interview
Recruiter screen, technical screen, virtual onsite with 4 rounds (two technical, 2 behavioral). Overall experience was good, recruiters were kind and had a quick turnaround for updates. They even gave a doordash gift card for interviewing with them,
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
a trie related problem to search for certain words