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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

← Waymo

New Grad / Junior Backend at Waymo

BackendNew Grad / JuniorOutcome unknown◆ Commonly asked· 2025

Junior backend interview. Balanced across coding, design, and collaboration.

The loop · 5 rounds

01

Round 01 · 1 question

Online Assessment

Timed online coding / aptitude screen, usually the first filter.

  • Simulate a simplified card game and score it.
    New Grad / JuniorMedium◆ Commonly asked
    #simulation
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
02

Round 02 · 3 questions

DSA / Coding

Data structures & algorithms on a whiteboard or shared editor.

  • Binary tree level order traversal.
    New Grad / JuniorMedium◆ Commonly asked
    #tree#bfs
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
  • Clone a graph.
    New Grad / JuniorMedium◆ Commonly asked
    #graph#dfs
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
  • Course Schedule — detect a cycle / topological sort.
    New Grad / JuniorMedium◆ Commonly asked
    #graph#topo-sort
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
03

Round 03 · 2 questions

Machine Coding

Build a working component or service under time pressure.

  • Implement a job queue with retries and backoff.
    New Grad / JuniorHard◆ Commonly asked
    #queue#reliability
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
  • Implement a token-bucket rate limiter as a service.
    New Grad / JuniorMedium◆ Commonly asked
    #rate-limit
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
04

Round 04 · 3 questions

Tech Deep-Dive

Deep questions on your core stack and fundamentals.

  • Explain how you handle concurrency / race conditions.
    New Grad / JuniorHard◆ Commonly asked
    #concurrency
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
  • Explain database indexing and when a query uses one.
    New Grad / JuniorMedium◆ Commonly asked
    #databases#indexing
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
  • Trade-offs of gRPC vs REST vs GraphQL.
    New Grad / JuniorMedium◆ Commonly asked
    #api-design
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
05

Round 05 · 2 questions

Behavioral / HR

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

  • Describe mentoring or unblocking another engineer.
    New Grad / Junior◆ Commonly asked
    #mentorship#star
  • How do you handle being blocked for several days?
    New Grad / Junior◆ Commonly asked
    #ownership#star

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