I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Yelp (San Francisco, CA) in Oct 2011
Interview
After an introductory e-mail from a recruiter, I began my interview with a phone screen. This phone screen was conducted by a HR person, who simply read off a list of trivia questions; a majority of these can be found in the other phone interview questions on Glassdoor. After passing these questions, I advanced onto another phone interview with a software engineer.
The phone interview with the software engineer was fairly spotty. It started off as an interview on Skype, but due to technical difficulties on their end, the engineer called my phone. In addition, it was clear that the engineer had not read through my resume since some questions were asked that were irrelevant or very tangental to the experiences and knowledge I had written down. After a shaky phone interview, I surprisingly moved on to the on-site interview.
On the day of my on-site interview, an small earthquake occurred, which delayed my arrival. As a result of this delay, I went through only one interview with an engineer instead of the 'usual' three interviews with an engineer and a final one with the VP of engineering. The recruiters informed me on-site that they would reschedule the rest of my interviews for the week after. However, I did not receive any confirmation e-mails after my interview. In addition, after calling the recruiter for an explanation, I received word that they had never promised to reschedule my interview and that I should simply re-apply.
Overall, I think Yelp has hands-down the worst recruiters. Good luck to anyone who applies.
Leetcode style interview online via link, then a 1 on 1 technical interview with a lead developer also online where you can ask questions about the role and working at yelp, later more in depth technical tests and finally references and psicological tests.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Talk about the project you are the most proud of, why do you want to work at yelp
Very intense. 4 back to back 45 minute interviews. One behaviour and four technical interviews.
Nice people but got the vibe everyone was happy with the work as it wasn’t too challenging.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Yelp (Toronto, ON) in May 2025
Interview
Around 3 different rounds with a mix of behavioural and technical. Last round features on-site which lasts the whole day, where there are 2 dsa rounds, 1 system design round and 1 recruiter round to end the day.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Walk us through one project you have done, and some of the challenges you encountered while working on this project