I applied through college or university. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at TikTok (San Jose, CA) in Oct 2023
Interview
The process was smooth overall. But extremely bad respect for interviewees. I got through all 3 rounds but they cancelled my call with the HR for discussing compensation just 1 hour before the call. Got no feedback as well got ghosted. All three rounds were similar 2 technical with devs and 1 with hiring manager consisting of resume dive, regular ml questions and a leetcode question.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
General resume dive with formulas for ML algorithms, general ML questions as well related to data. 1 Leetcode problem every round which were LC medium.
Surprisingly straightforward — I expected a tougher challenge for a machine learning role. After a quick recruiter screen, the first technical round focused on implementing K-means clustering, which felt familiar. Handling edge cases for empty clusters was tricky, though. What really helped me prep were the algorithm explanations on PracHub, which gave me confidence going in. The final interviews were a mix of problem-solving and behavioral questions, and in the end, I received an offer that I accepted. Overall, it was a decent experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
implementing K-means clustering from scratch and handling empty cluster edge cases
three rounds, each has coding + ml basic + resume related questions
understand all the details in resume is important, since might go very deep down the project you have worked on
The first round was mainly a CV walkthrough.
The second round focused in depth on one specific project.
Both rounds also included LeetCode medium-level problems.
The third round was with the hiring manager with both project and problems for their business.
