interviewing for a data science role at Target in about 3 weeks and trying to build a picture of what the loop looks like right now. i know their tech org has been growing but haven't found a ton of recent data.
if you've been through a Target tech interview in the past 6 months, would love to know: role and level (SWE, DS, DE, etc.) how many rounds and what format (coding, system design, behavioral, case) anything that surprised you about the questions whether it felt like retail-domain knowledge mattered
dropping what I have so far: got a take-home SQL/Python assignment as round 2, ~2 hours, focused on customer segmentation. the prompt explicitly mentioned Target's loyalty program so I think retail context helps here.
5 replies
de_derek
data eng, mid-senior level, went through it about 4 months ago. 5 rounds: recruiter, technical screen (SQL + Python, 45 min), take-home (similar to what you described), system design focused on a data pipeline scenario, and behavioral panel. the system design question was retail-flavored: think about designing a near-real-time inventory data system. knowing some basics about ETL at scale and event-driven architecture helped. no deep retail domain expertise needed but they appreciated when I framed examples around high-volume transactional data.
ds_dmitri
super helpful. did they give you prep materials for the system design or just cold-dropped you in?
de_derek
cold drop. recruiter said 45 minutes and gave the general topic area (data pipeline) about 30 minutes before. not enough time to actually prep anything, so just lean on fundamentals and talk out loud.
ml_mike
did a loop for an ML engineer role about 6 months ago. recsys adjacent. they asked about model evaluation in production, AB testing, and how I'd handle a recommender that was surfacing the wrong products in a specific guest segment. the behavioral questions were the standard leadership behavior stuff but the technical bar was real. they're not just looking for people who can build models, they want someone who understands business impact.
backend_bekah
SWE (backend), L4 equivalent. loop was: screen, take-home (medium LeetCode difficulty), then virtual onsite with two coding rounds and one behavioral. the behavioral was half the time and they took it seriously. I bombed a conflict story that I thought was going fine and you could feel the energy shift. practice your behavioral answers as much as your DSA.