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Quora

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Quora is a question-and-answer platform where users ask questions and share knowledge on a wide range of topics. It is known for its community-driven content and also operates Poe, an AI chatbot aggregation platform.

6 interview notes · updated Jul 2026

Quora·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jul 2026
Quora software engineer interview with a string algorithm problem focused on counting distinct palindromic subsequences across multiple lengths. Pretty niche problem, not your typical LeetCode easy.
  • Given a string of lowercase letters, count how many distinct palindromic subsequences of lengths 2, 3, and 4 exist. Count by unique string value, not by number of index combinations.

“The 'distinct by value not by index' part is what tripped me up initially.”

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Quora·Machine Learning Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Quora ML Engineer interview with a coding round that was heavier on matrix manipulation than I expected. The rotation problem is the one that'll stick with me for a while.
  • Given an m×n matrix and a sequence of string commands, implement each command and return the resulting matrix. Commands include: 90° clockwise rotation, row swap, column swap, row reversal, and column reversal. The matrix is not necessarily square.

“The row/column swaps and reversals were fine, pretty mechanical.”

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Quora·Machine Learning Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Quora ML engineer interview, got a data structure design problem that looked straightforward but had a real gotcha in the remove operation. Classic O(1) set question, but the follow-up on complexity pushed me a bit.
  • Design a data structure that supports insert, remove, and getRandom, all in average O(1) time. Walk through your approach and then discuss the time and space complexity.

“The insert and getRandom parts clicked fast for me.”

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Quora·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Jun 2026
Interviewed for a software engineer role at Quora, got a pretty standard string manipulation problem. Nothing too wild but I definitely overthought parts of it.
  • Given an array of strings, write a function that returns the longest common prefix shared by all of them. Return an empty string if none exists.

“I knew this one but still fumbled the explanation a bit.”

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Quora·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

May 2026
Quora software engineer interview with a tricky array reconstruction problem. The algorithmic angle wasn't obvious at first and the reverse simulation approach took a while to click.
  • Given an array of n integers as the target, and starting from an array of n ones, you can repeatedly pick any index and set it to the current total sum of the array. Is it possible to reach the target array using this operation?

“My first instinct was to go forward and try building up toward the target, which went nowhere fast.”

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Quora·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Apr 2026
Quora coding round with a string problem that felt like a familiar LC question until it wasn't. The extension to multiple palindrome lengths tripped me up more than I expected.
  • Given a string, return the count of distinct palindromic subsequences of length 2, length 3, and length 4 as three separate values.

“I knew the length-3 version from practice so I jumped straight into the first/last occurrence trick for the middle character.”

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