Four of these seven reports say the technical rounds were practical rather than LeetCode-style. Three of the 2026 reports describe culture, values, or team-fit conversations that carried real weight late in the process.

Coverage: Notion software engineers hired at experienced levels: a Senior (L4) hire for a specialized team with 10 years of experience, a Staff candidate with about 13, Senior candidates in New York and the U.S., and two Software Engineers interviewing from a current job. Recruiter and phone screens, technical screens, onsites with coding, system design, and values rounds, an AI coding round, and CEO and hiring-manager conversations. San Francisco, New York, and the U.S.; some reports give no location. Reports from November 2024 to August 2026.

Intern reports are in our Notion intern roundup, new grads are in our Notion new grad roundup, and Notion reports that don't give a hiring level have their own roundup.

What came up

Practical technical rounds and fit conversations are the two things these seven reports keep returning to. Few named an actual question.

A candidate can appear in more than one row. Report 05 describes no topic at all.

Questions we found

Behavioral (BQ)

Project Coding (frontend build)

7 detailed candidate timelines, loops, and screens

01: An AI coding round and an interview with the CEO

Report date: Aug 13, 2026 · Role: Senior Software Engineer (L4), specialized team · Experience: 10 years · Location: San Francisco · Result: Offer

Interview loop (the candidate didn't give the order of rounds)

1. An AI coding round. No details were shared.
2. An interview with Notion's CEO, which the candidate found intense.

The candidate found the interviews manageable, but said fit with the team and with Notion as a whole mattered a great deal.

02: Passed the onsite, lost at team matching

Report date: May 7, 2026 · Role: Staff Software Engineer · Experience: About 13 years · Result: Passed the onsite, no team match

Onsite

1. Passed. The rounds weren't described.

Hiring-manager calls with two teams

1. The recruiter called these informal chats about past experience and projects. In practice they asked about challenges and conflicts within the candidate's teams, and indirectly about how their project teams worked (practice).
2. Neither team matched. The candidate was told the managers wanted to see more teamwork and team leadership.

The recruiter said the candidate could be considered for other teams later without interviewing again.

03: React in a real codebase

Report date: May 1, 2026 · Role: Senior SWE · Location: New York · Result: Offer, accepted

Technical rounds

1. Practical rather than LeetCode-style. They focused on React skill and on working inside a real codebase.

The candidate felt the loop rewarded engineering and abstraction design more than algorithm practice, and that real work experience counted.

04: Practical, but data structures still helped

Report date: Mar 23, 2026 · Role: Software Engineer · Result: No offer

Process

1. Phone screen.
2. Technical screen.
3. Onsite: technical, system design, and values rounds.

Question the candidate listed

1. What do you appreciate in your current role, and what feels missing? (practice).

The questions were practical, not LeetCode-style, though the candidate said knowing data structures and algorithms still helped.

05: Confident after the onsite, then a generic rejection

Report date: Feb 1, 2025 · Role: Senior Software Engineer · Location: United States · Result: No offer

Onsite

1. The candidate left feeling good about every round and expected an offer. The rounds weren't described.

A generic rejection email followed. The people were smart and friendly, but no reason was given.

06: A simple React build as the final step

Report date: Nov 1, 2024 · Role: Senior Software Engineer · Location: United States · Result: No offer

Interviews 1–6

1. Technical, culture, and other rounds. The candidate said they all went well.

Interview 7: paired React exercise

1. Build a fairly simple UI in React, working from a blurry screenshot. No design file was available.
2. No JavaScript fundamentals or algorithms were tested. When the candidate offered to use some of React's more advanced hooks, the interviewer asked them not to.
3. Before each step the candidate asked whether to spend more time there; the interviewer said no. They finished early, offered to go deeper, and the interviewer moved on to questions.

The rejection said their work was acceptable but not at the level needed, with no further detail. The candidate found this last round easier than the earlier ones.

07: A practical data-structures screen

Report date: Nov 1, 2024 · Role: Software Engineer · Location: United States · Result: No offer (stopped after the technical screen)

Recruiter call

1. The role and what Notion expected.
2. Why do you want to leave your current job? (practice)

Technical screen

1. Data structures, framed around real-world use rather than puzzles. The task wasn't described.

The candidate didn't make it to the onsite.

Patterns across the reports

1. Practical technical rounds. Reports 03, 04, 06 and 07 all describe practical work instead of LeetCode problems: React in a real codebase (03), product-style questions where data-structure knowledge still helped (04), a simple React UI (06), and a data-structures screen framed around real use (07).

2. Fit decided late. In 01 the candidate stressed how much fit mattered and met the CEO. In 02 the candidate passed the onsite and then didn't match with either hiring manager after behavioral-style calls. In 04 the onsite itself had a values round.

3. Rejection after a strong-feeling final round. Reports 05 and 06 both felt their last interviews went well and got a rejection without specific feedback.

Keep practicing

• The Notion behavioral question bank has the three prompts linked above (sign-in needed).
• The Notion project coding bank holds Notion's React build and debugging projects (sign-in needed).
• Everything Notion in one place: the Notion interview page and Notion hiring insights.
• More firsthand reports: the Experience feed.

Sources: Anywhere useful interview info can be found.