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Interview questions from top companies, mapped to the exact round they show up in. Prep for what you will actually face.

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Online AssessmentDSA / CodingMachine CodingLow-Level Design

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The Loop aggregates publicly shared interview experiences and curated commonly-asked questions, each labeled with its source. Not affiliated with any company listed.

MIT · © 2026

← GitLab

Staff+ Backend at GitLab

BackendStaff+Offer◆ Commonly asked· 2025

Staff backend interview. Coding-heavy early, design and behavioral later.

The loop · 5 rounds

01

Round 01 · 3 questions

DSA / Coding

Data structures & algorithms on a whiteboard or shared editor.

  • Subsets.
    Staff+Medium◆ Commonly asked
    #backtracking
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
  • Construct binary tree from preorder and inorder traversal.
    Staff+Medium◆ Commonly asked
    #tree#recursion
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
  • Maximum subarray (Kadane).
    Staff+Medium◆ Commonly asked
    #array#dp
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
02

Round 02 · 1 question

Low-Level Design

Object-oriented / low-level design of a focused module.

  • Design a rate limiter (classes + interfaces).
    Staff+Medium◆ Commonly asked
    #oop#rate-limit
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
03

Round 03 · 2 questions

System Design

High-level architecture of a large-scale system.

  • Design a news feed / timeline.
    Staff+Hard◆ Commonly asked
    #fanout#ranking#cache
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
  • Design a rate-limited, multi-tenant public API gateway.
    Staff+Hard◆ Commonly asked
    #gateway#rate-limit
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
04

Round 04 · 1 question

Hiring Manager

Scope, ownership, and role-fit discussion with the manager.

  • Walk me through a technical trade-off you regret.
    Staff+◆ Commonly asked
    #judgment
05

Round 05 · 2 questions

Behavioral / HR

Values, collaboration, and past-experience (STAR) questions.

  • Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned.
    Staff+◆ Commonly asked
    #growth#star
  • Tell me about receiving hard feedback and acting on it.
    Staff+◆ Commonly asked
    #feedback#star

◆ This experience is composed from commonly reported questions for this role and level. Real, individually-shared interviews will be layered in over time.