ZorixOS
27+ Yelp questions

Yelp interview questions and how to prepare

The questions candidates report from Yelp interviews, sorted by how often they come up, with difficulty and topics, plus original practice written in Yelp's interview style.

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ZorixOS tracks 27 community-reported Yelp interview questions, drawn from an open-source dataset of real interview reports and sorted by how frequently each one comes up. Every question links to its source. Alongside them are 78 original ZorixOS practice questions written in Yelp's known interview style (not claimed as asked at Yelp), so you can rehearse the real format. Practice any of them out loud in a free AI mock interview tuned to Yelp.

Updated July 2026

Yelp interview questions candidates report

Community-reported from real Yelp interviews (open-source dataset), most-asked first. Showing 27. Each links to its source.

  1. Destination City
    ArrayHash TableString
    Easy100% asked
  2. Remove Colored Pieces if Both Neighbors are the Same Color
    MathStringGreedyGame Theory
    Medium100% asked
  3. Filter Restaurants by Vegan-Friendly, Price and Distance
    ArraySorting
    Medium98% asked
  4. Active Businesses
    Database
    Medium95% asked
  5. Check If a Word Occurs As a Prefix of Any Word in a Sentence
    Two PointersStringString Matching
    Easy95% asked
  6. Course Schedule
    Depth-First SearchBreadth-First SearchGraph TheoryTopological Sort
    Medium95% asked
  7. Decode String
    StringStackRecursion
    Medium95% asked
  8. Find the Closest Palindrome
    MathString
    Hard95% asked
  9. Group Anagrams
    ArrayHash TableStringSorting
    Medium95% asked
  10. Insert Delete GetRandom O(1)
    ArrayHash TableMathDesign
    Medium95% asked
  11. Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) - Duplicates allowed
    ArrayHash TableMathDesign
    Hard95% asked
  12. Letter Case Permutation
    StringBacktrackingBit Manipulation
    Medium95% asked
  13. Longest Common Prefix
    ArrayStringTrie
    Easy95% asked
  14. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters
    Hash TableStringSliding Window
    Medium95% asked
  15. Merge Intervals
    ArraySorting
    Medium95% asked
  16. Minimum Index Sum of Two Lists
    ArrayHash TableString
    Easy95% asked
  17. Reverse Linked List
    Linked ListRecursion
    Easy95% asked
  18. Reverse Words in a String
    Two PointersString
    Medium95% asked
  19. String Compression
    Two PointersString
    Medium95% asked
  20. The Skyline Problem
    ArrayDivide and ConquerBinary Indexed TreeSegment Tree
    Hard95% asked
  21. Top K Frequent Elements
    ArrayHash TableDivide and ConquerSorting
    Medium95% asked
  22. Top K Frequent Words
    ArrayHash TableStringTrie
    Medium95% asked
  23. Two Sum
    ArrayHash Table
    Easy95% asked
  24. Valid Anagram
    Hash TableStringSorting
    Easy95% asked
  25. Word Ladder
    Hash TableStringBreadth-First Search
    Hard95% asked
  26. Word Ladder II
    Hash TableStringBacktrackingBreadth-First Search
    Hard95% asked
  27. Shortest and Lexicographically Smallest Beautiful String
    StringSliding Window
    Medium64% asked

Practice questions in Yelp's style

Original ZorixOS questions written the way Yelp interviews, so you rehearse the real format. Not claimed as asked at Yelp.

  1. Imagine a user is reporting that when they search for 'pizza' in San Francisco, they are seeing restaurants in Oakland. Describe the steps you would take to debug this issue, considering Yelp's location-based search and data sources.

    Software EngineerDebuggingTests: Evaluates systematic debugging skills and understanding of location services.

  2. Yelp's reviews system handles a massive volume of text. How would you design a system to efficiently detect and flag duplicate or spam reviews, considering potential scale and the nuances of human language?

    Software EngineerSystem DesignTests: Tests system design capabilities for high-scale content moderation and NLP considerations.

  3. Write a Python function to find the N most frequently reviewed businesses in a given city, given a dataset of reviews with business IDs and review text. Assume the data is too large to fit into memory.

    Software EngineerCodingTests: Assesses coding proficiency, algorithmic thinking, and handling large datasets.

  4. A user can 'save' a business to a list. How would you design the backend API and database schema to handle millions of users saving millions of businesses to potentially many different lists, optimizing for read and write performance?

    Software EngineerSystem DesignTests: Probes understanding of database design and API architecture for social features at scale.

  5. Yelp's recommendation engine suggests businesses to users. If the system starts showing generic, less relevant recommendations, what are potential causes and how would you investigate them?

    Software EngineerDebuggingTests: Tests reasoning about recommender system failures and data pipeline issues.

  6. Design a real-time notification system for Yelp. For example, when a user's review is commented on, or a business owner replies to a review. Consider the scalability and delivery guarantees.

    Software EngineerSystem DesignTests: Evaluates design of distributed, real-time systems with reliability requirements.

72+ more Yelp-style questions are in the free library, each practiceable live with adaptive follow-ups and an honest scorecard. Start free.

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Yelp Interview Questions (2026) | ZorixOS