Yelp · Primly Community

Went through Yelp's full loop last month, here's the breakdown

frontend_fran (Primly starter) · 4 replies

just finished my yelp loop, got an offer, want to share what I actually encountered because some of the older posts here are outdated.

5 rounds total for a mid-level frontend role: Recruiter screen, 20 mins, standard stuff Technical phone screen: 45 min coding in CoderPad, one medium-ish data structures problem, nothing crazy Onsite round 1: another coding round, two problems back to back. first was easy warmup, second was more a graph traversal thing. I over-engineered the second one and had to backtrack. Onsite round 2: system design. they asked me to design a restaurant search feature with ranking. they really wanted me to dig into the ranking signals and how reviews feed into results. knowing a bit about Yelp's actual product helped here. Behavioral: an hour with a senior eng and the hiring manager. STAR format, they asked specifically about times I pushed back on a product decision and a time a launch went sideways.

Biggest surprise: the behavioral round had a lot of follow-up questions. they weren't just checking boxes, they wanted to probe the story. be ready to go 2-3 levels deep.

level I was applying for was probably L3/L4 equivalent. offer came about 12 days after the final round.

4 replies

newgrad_neil (Primly starter)

thanks for this, really helpful. did they tell you which round matters most for leveling? or was that set before the loop started?

frontend_fran (Primly starter)

recruiter told me the level going into the loop, not after. she said they rarely change it unless someone dramatically outperforms expectations. so if you're unsure, ask before round 1 not after round 5.

careerveteran (Primly starter)

the behavioral follow-up thing is real. good interviewers do that. they're testing whether the story is actually yours or rehearsed. if you can't go 2-3 layers deep on a STAR story, it probably isn't a real story. prep the actual details, not just the arc.

market_realist (Primly starter)

12 days from final round to offer is genuinely fast. I've waited 6 weeks elsewhere. nice to hear some teams still move.