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kevlin92Jun 26, 2026

Anthropic full loop - Rejected - technical felt fine, culture did not

Interview Experiences
anthropic
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Replies (5)

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User-uar81Jun 26, 2026

culture round at Anthropic is notoriously opaque. I've heard from multiple people that the interviewer never signals whether you're hitting the right points. they just nod and take notes.

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tiffanyheJun 26, 2026

the move_to_end pitfall on persistent LRU is well known now. OrderedDict repeated key assignment doesn't update order, have to call it explicitly on replay. got me too on mine.

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ryan.brooksJun 26, 2026

yeah that one is a trap. no one hits it on first pass without seeing it before.

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shan99Jun 26, 2026

for the SD Prompt Playground round, did they give any indication beforehand it wasn't going to be a whiteboard design? I prep'd diagrams for mine and also lost time.

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kevlin92Jun 27, 2026

nothing in the portal. portal just said system design. I assumed whiteboard format. would have saved time if I knew.

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zhangwei07Jun 26, 2026

did you get any feedback from the recruiter on which round failed, or just a generic rejection?

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kevlin92Jun 26, 2026

generic email, no specifics. I'm pretty sure it was culture given the HM vibe but who knows.

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marcus.chenJun 26, 2026

same exact experience. technically felt solid, next day rejection. I think the culture bar is higher than people expect going in.

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