I applied online. I interviewed at TikTok (San Jose, CA) in May 2026
Interview
The interview process is very smooth.
Sql question is simple, they just want to make sure you undersatnd the sql and can read it
The first rond they dig very deep into your experience and ask a lot of follow up questions. And ask what will you do if you have a second chance, how would you improve it if you do it now.
A former colleague referred me to the Data Scientist position at TikTok, which kicked off the interview process. The technical screen included a question about designing an A/B test for a ranking model, followed by an SQL challenge related to user sessions. The funny part was that the SQL problem was a twist on one I had been grinding through on PracHub just a few days prior. After some behavioral interviews, I received an offer, but ultimately decided to decline as it didn't align with my goals.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Walk me through how you'd design an A/B test for a new ranking model on the For You feed, and how you'd pick guardrail metrics.
Given a sessions table (user_id, session_start, session_end, country), write SQL to find the users whose average session length grew the most week-over-week.