Preparing Snapchat OA , many students were a little unsure: Will the questions be too biased? Do you need to brush a lot of LeetCode? What is the focus of the investigation of Data and SDE?
Recently, we completely reviewed a candidate’s Snapchat OA interview experience and found that the actual style of this set of Snapchat Data / SDE OA is different from the “high-intensity quiz level” imagined by many people. It is more like a systematic inspection of basic capabilities - from Linked List, tree structure, to Bloom Filter design, to the expression maximum problem of partial data thinking. The test is always whether you have stable and implementable engineering and data capabilities.
This article will combine real Snapchat Online Assessment questions to completely break down the question structure, process timeline and high-frequency stuck points of OA to help you avoid detours when preparing for the Snapchat OA interview and focus your energy on the areas that really determine your pass rate.
Snapchat Data Job Interview Process & Timeline Reference
The following timeline is a summary of real feedback from multiple candidates. It may vary slightly depending on the position and region, but the overall rhythm is quite stable:
Day 0 – Delivery/Recommendation
- Submit to the official website or submit your resume through internal recommendation.
- Data / SDE mixed positions have higher requirements for the authenticity of resume projects
Day 7–14 – OA invitation received
- Recruiter or system email sends OA
- Generally given 5–7 days completion time
- OA is usually completed in one go and cannot be paused midway.
Day 14–21 – Complete OA
- OA usually contains 2–3 rounds of questions
- The total duration is approx. 90–120 minutes
- Programming + Data Structure + Thinking Question Mix
Day 21–35 – OA results feedback
- Those who pass will be contacted by the recruiter
- Go to follow-up Phone / Virtual Onsite
- There is usually no clear feedback for failure (Snapchat is more typical)
Overall approximately 3–4 weeks from delivery to OA results.
Round 1: Basic data structure + simple system relationship modeling
Linked List split (Odd / Even)
The question itself is not complicated:
Given a Linked List, split it into two new Linked Lists: one for odd index and one for even index.
The core test point is not the difficulty of the algorithm, but:
- Can pointer be used correctly?
- Whether it can be operated on the original linked list to avoid excess space
- Whether to consider null / boundary conditions
Common ideas are:
- Use a pointer to start traversing from head
- At each step, use a temp to point to
Pointer.next - Add temp to the new linked list
- At the same time, the next pointer of the original linked list is maintained to prevent link breakage.
This type of question is typical of Snapchat:
It’s not that it’s difficult for you, but it depends on whether the code you write is “clean, stable, and free of low-level bugs.”
Employee Organizational Structure: Find a Common Manager
The background of the topic is a Employee Class, including:
String name(unique ID)List<Employee> directReports
The input is:
- CEO node
Emp1,Emp2Two employee names
The output is:
The two employees’ most recent public managers
The essence is one LCA (Lowest Common Ancestor) problem of N-ary Tree.
Highlights of the inspection include:
- Can the entire organization tree be traversed correctly?
- Is it possible to return valid status in recursion/DFS
- Whether it can handle the situation where "one employee is the superior of another employee"
This question is quite Snapchat-esque:
The business abstraction is clear, but it requires you to understand the tree structure well.
Round 2: Bloom Filter design questions
This round the gap began to widen significantly.
It is required to implement a Bloom Filter,support:
AddMightContainRemoveResize
The test points are very focused on:
- Do you understand the probabilistic characteristics of Bloom Filter?
- Do you know the difference between false positive / false negative?
- Do you know that Bloom Filter does not support remove natively and needs to use counting or reconstruction?
Common follow-ups revolve around:
- How to choose the number of hash functions
- How to expand bit array
- Does resize affect the false positive rate?
This round is not about “have you memorized Bloom Filter?”
It's about whether you can explain, write clearly, and think through the constraints of a classic data structure.
Round 3: Mathematics + Maximum Expression Problem
The topic is:
Given a double array, it is allowed to use
*,+And(), output the maximum value that can be obtained.
Follow-up:
What to do if there are negative numbers in the array?
The essence of this question is:
- Expression combination
- Interval DP/recursive search
- Understanding of Negative Numbers and Multiplication Priority
The key is not the length of the final code, but whether you realize:
- The maximum does not necessarily come from a "local maximum"
- Negative × Negative may be global optimal
- It is necessary to maintain two states of max / min at the same time
This type of question is quite common on Snapchat and is an engineering question that relies on data thinking.
Overwhelm big OA companies and get offers easily!
Meta, Google, Snapchat, TikTok, Amazon... The Online Assessment (OA) of these major companies is getting more and more complicated. LeetCode Hard is so difficult to read, and there are a lot of Bloom Filter, DP expression, and system design questions. Time is tight and the pressure is high. If you don't pay attention, you will fail...
"So that's it?" - This is what countless students who got the offer exclaimed afterward!
But the premise is: your code is clean, your ideas are clear, your boundaries are perfect, and your pass rate is 100%.
We have focused on incognito ghostwriting for major OA companies for many years, helping thousands of candidates pass the test safely (full coverage of high-frequency OA such as Snapchat, Byte, Uber, Roblox, Databricks, etc.)!
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