Went through Instacart's final round in April 2026 for a senior SWE / infra-adjacent role. Everything is virtual now but they still call it the onsite. Here's the actual structure.
Loop structure (what I had): Two coding rounds (45 min each) One system design round (60 min) One behavioral round (45 min) One hiring manager / culture conversation (30 min)
Total time across two days (they split it). First day: coding + system design. Second day: behavioral + HM.
The coding rounds: Both problems were medium-hard complexity. First round focused on trees/graphs with a real-world framing (think: how do you find the shortest pick path for a shopper in a store with aisles represented as a graph). Second round was more array manipulation. Both interviewers gave hints after about 15 minutes if you were stuck. The hints weren't huge but they existed. I appreciated that.
The system design: Already covered in another post on here, but mine was notification infrastructure for a delivery platform. Think: how do millions of status updates fan out to the right users without hammering your database.
The behavioral: Four questions in 45 minutes. They move fast. Have your STAR stories ready, they're not looking for long narratives. Tight is better.
The HM conversation: Honestly the most human part of the whole loop. My hiring manager spent like 15 minutes explaining the team's current tech debt situation and what they needed. Then asked if that sounded appealing. It felt almost collaborative. I came out of it not knowing if I'd get the offer but feeling like I'd had an actual conversation about real work.
Timeline: I finished day 2 on a Thursday. Got a verbal offer the following Wednesday. Quick turnaround.