Software Engineer candidates at Toast describe a recruiter call, a coding screen, and a loop of four to six interviews mixing technical, design and behavioral conversations. Most reports end in rejection, with one accepted offer.
$143K
Avg. Base Comp
$173K
Avg. Total Comp
4-6 rounds
Typical Rounds
2-3 weeks
Process Length
Candidates describe the Toast Software Engineer interview as approachable on paper, with most of the difficulty coming from follow-up questions. The early coding screen is usually described as easy to medium. Stock buy/sell profit problems appear in several accounts. One candidate was handed a variation after solving the first version, and another reached only a brute-force answer, so practice the optimal approach and be ready to say how you would improve a first pass.
The later loop widens. Candidates describe four to six interviews that combine technical rounds with conversations with managers and other team members. Restaurant-themed prompts show up repeatedly: a table-booking or reservation design, a menu parser, ranking restaurants by order value, and a depth-first search through deeply nested input. Code review, API design and caching came up for some candidates, and one was asked about multi-threading. Rehearse growing a simple solution into something scalable and reusable.
Communication carries real weight. Interviewers pressed some candidates on why they chose a method, expected them to write their own edge-case tests, or debated the semantics of their code, so narrate your reasoning and ask clarifying questions out loud. Reports of scheduling no-shows and slow follow-up also appear, so confirm sessions ahead of time. Nearly every Software Engineer account here ended without an offer; one candidate reports accepting one.
Synthesized from 21 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Toast, Inc. process.
I applied online in August and got a single 30-minute recruiter screen, and that call was the whole process. I spent most of it walking through my background: about 20 years in software engineering, most recently leading backend and AI platform work on EU research projects. The project I kept coming back to was one where I wrote most of the backend, and it went on to win 2 million EUR in follow-on funding. I expected the conversation to move toward the architecture or the tradeoffs I made, but the recruiter kept returning to one question: did I have customer data showing the project was a success? I explained that as the engineer who built the system, customer relationship data wasn't part of my role, and that winning competitive EU funding of that size was a strong signal the work was valued. The question came back anyway, and the technical work never really got a turn. A few days later I got the rejection. One screen can't tell you everything about a company, but it did show me how my work was going to be filtered at that stage. If you're an engineer going into a first call like this, expect that someone may judge your project by business metrics you don't own, and think about how you'll frame your impact in those terms.
Prep tip from this candidate
Before a recruiter screen, prepare a one-sentence business framing for each major project, using only outcomes you can actually cite such as funding, adoption, or usage numbers. This screen pressed repeatedly on customer evidence rather than engineering decisions, so have an answer ready for that question.
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Sourced from candidate reports and verified by our team.
Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Toast, Inc.
Find the maximum profit from at most two stock buy/sell transactions
| Question | |
|---|---|
| Bagging vs Boosting | |
| Hurdles In Data Projects | |
| Client Solution Pushback | |
| String Palindromes | |
| Distributed Authentication Model | |
| 2nd Highest Salary | |
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
| Top Three Salaries | |
| Merge Sorted Lists | |
| Closest SAT Scores | |
| Top 3 Users | |
| Random SQL Sample | |
| Subscription Overlap | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| Top 5 Turnover Risk | |
| Monthly Customer Report | |
| Duplicate Rows | |
| Size of Joins | |
| Scrambled Tickets | |
| Find Bigrams | |
| Last Transaction | |
| Upsell Transactions | |
| Longest Streak Users | |
| Payments Received | |
| Minimum Change | |
| String Shift | |
| Customer Orders | |
| Raining in Seattle | |
| Find the Missing Number |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates describe an opening call in which the recruiter walks through the role and asks about their background. Several found recruiters responsive and clear about what came next. Expect to talk through your experience and interest in Toast before any technical work begins.
Candidates report a live coding screen, sometimes on HackerRank and in one case about 30 minutes. Reported problems include stock buy/sell profit and extending a partly built restaurant ranking feature. Interviewers may ask for variations or press on why you chose an approach, so explain your reasoning as you code.
Later technical rounds vary by candidate. Reports include a restaurant table-booking design, a code review exercise with caching and API security discussion, and a depth-first search over deeply nested input. One candidate recalls multi-threading questions. Interviewers probe edge cases and expect you to write your own tests, so practice evolving a simple solution toward a scalable design.
Candidates describe behavioral interviews with hiring managers and other team members. Topics include prior projects, technical decisions, ownership, a time you failed, and troubleshooting an unclear problem. One candidate was asked repeatedly why they wanted the role, so prepare concise, consistent stories about your work.
Most Software Engineer reports end in rejection, while one candidate describes accepting an offer. Several mention little or no feedback, and one describes interviewers missing two scheduled sessions. One candidate put the process at roughly two to three weeks, including a take-home assignment, so follow up politely if communication stalls.
