Get a Job at Walmart: Interview Process and Top Questions

The retail giant, Walmart, hosts a technology division, Walmart Global Tech (previously known as Walmart Labs), which is a global employer and focused on transforming Walmart into a tech-driven company. Interested in innovating within retail, global supply chain, and e-commerce?

Below, we break down the Walmart interview process and top questions you should expect to answer.

What is the Walmart interview process?

The interview process at Walmart Global Tech is a fairly standard interview process, similar to the process at other tech companies. You'll face a preliminary recruiter round, a technical assessment, and then several virtual final rounds.

The Walmart interview process typically takes about 4–8 weeks and involves:

• Recruiter phone screen,
• Technical screen,
• Final round.

Recruiter phone screen

The first step of the Walmart interview process is a recruiter phone call. Expect to answer questions about past roles and your experience, and a couple simple technical questions related to the role. Come prepared with questions about the role, team, or logistics, and ask your recruiter any questions you have about the rest of the interview process.

Technical screen

The second step in the Walmart interview process is an online assessment: a one-hour coding challenge on HackerRank with 1–2 questions of medium to hard difficulty. Expect to get tested on Python and SQL questions, data structures and algorithms, and concepts like arrays and binary search.

For non-engineering roles, expect a technical assessment related to your domain instead. For data roles, this is a technical screen of SQL questions and statistical analysis. For PM roles, this is typically a case study or product strategy questions. 

Final rounds

The final round of Walmart’s interview process includes 3–5 loops, which vary, according to the role. All loops are one-hour long and conducted virtually, one-on-one with an interviewer. 

Expect to get several technical rounds, focused on testing your domain knowledge for the role. Most candidates face a case study during the final round at Walmart, so prepare for practical questions you’d face day-to-day on the team you’re interviewing for. All roles face a behavioral round with a hiring manager, which often focuses on past projects, so prepare to discuss projects that relate to this role or team, which also show off your soft skills.

Top Walmart Interview Questions

Behavioral

• Tell me about a time you made a mistake.
• Tell me about your past projects.
• Tell me about a time when you missed a deadline.
• Why do you want to work at Walmart Labs?
• What is your team management style?

Coding

• Find the median of two sorted arrays.
• Explain the differences between an interface and an abstract class.
• Group anagrams
• Given n houses in a line with money in each, find the maximum amount a robber can steal, without stealing from two adjacent houses.
• Is this a valid palindrome?
• LRU Cache
• Implement merge-sort

System design

• Design Twitter.
• Design a reservation and payment system for a parking garage.
• Explain how you would design Google Play Store, including your choice of database, its structure, and rationale.
• Design the best slippers.

Machine learning

• K-means clustering
• Linear regression
• Logistic regression
• Optimization algorithms
• Decision trees
• Transformers

Data science

• How do you deal with overfitting?
• Implement an algorithm to figure out if four points in a space can form a rectangle or not.
• How would you determine if a classifier is biased?
• Walk through a typical data analysis. What would be your first steps?

Product management 

• What's your favorite product and why?
• Tell me about a time when you made a decision without sufficient customer data.
• You're a PM for Walmart building a new fulfillment center. What products would you stock?
• How would you improve walmart.com?
• Tell me about the most complex project you have led.

Walmart Interview Loops Explained

Behavioral

The behavioral round at Walmart is a straightforward behavioral interview. Prepare for a combination of “Tell me about a time when…” questions and “What if…” scenario questions. It’s common for the behavioral round at Walmart to be conducted with the hiring manager and to focus on past projects.

For both types of questions, use specific examples from past projects in your answers to demonstrate a soft skill and how you handle certain situations. Consider using the STAR framework to organize your answers. Also, read through Walmart’s core values on Walmart’s Purpose page to know which soft skills to highlight in your answers. 

Coding

The coding final rounds at Walmart are similar to the technical screen, both in subject matter and in the way it’s conducted. Expect 1–2 loops of coding questions that are a mixture of easy to hard-level difficulty. Your second loop will likely include technical topics more personalized to the role you’re interviewing for.

Prepare for these common coding topics at Walmart: 

• Linked lists,
• Dictionaries, 
• Sorting, 
• Java,
• Trees,
• SDLC,
• CI/CD.

System design

Walmart’s system design round is a standard whiteboard system design interview. Expect to design a scalable, efficient system in response to a practical problem, such as a current challenge Walmart faces, or a system related to the supply chain, retail, and e-commerce industry. Remember to ask clarifying questions, articulate your decision-making process well, consider trade-offs, and leave enough time at the end to answer follow-up questions from your interviewer. Also, be sure to emphasize how your design centers the customer. To prepare, study Walmart’s products and services, so you’re ready for practical questions. 

Machine learning

Walmart’s machine learning round focuses on ML concepts, like ML model questions, coding ML algorithms, and natural language processing techniques. Study up ahead of time on techniques to reduce variance and bias. Expect to get an ML case study, too, so study ML system design and Walmart's current AI ventures on the Walmart Global Tech AI blog ahead of time to prepare. You’ll likely also receive a loop deep-diving into your past ML projects.

Data science

The data science round at Walmart focuses on data analysis, and you may get tasked with a 24-hour take-home challenge that you then present. Prepare to talk about past projects and get tested on your understanding of topics, like SQL, statistics, probability, linear regression, logistic regression, and time-series forecasting.

Product management

The product management round at Walmart consists of a case study interview about a current challenge Walmart faces, and a conversational technical interview. In the case study, which focuses on product strategy and decision-making, expect to present a solution to a real-world business problem. The technical interview focuses on your understanding of, and experience with, the product development lifecycle. Come ready to exemplify through detailed anecdotes from past roles, how you’ve taken a product from idea to launch. 

Walmart Interview Tips

Walmart values customer focus and case studies. 

Prepare to demonstrate a customer-centric approach when solving real-world problems in case studies during your interview at Walmart. Most roles encounter a case study during the final round because Walmart likes to assess how candidates problem-solve in everyday tasks of the role. Look into the Walmart Global Tech blog and Walmart Global Tech News page to understand current ventures and challenges at Walmart, so you’re prepared to answer practical case study questions. And remember to focus in on the customer when answering case questions. 

All of Walmart’s positions are based in-office. 

When applying for a role at Walmart Global Tech, keep in mind that Walmart doesn’t hire remotely. All of Walmart Global Tech’s positions are based in-person at one of the following offices: US locations in Arkansas, New Jersey, Virginia, California, and Seattle, and global locations in Bangalore, India; Bentonville, AR; Chennai, India; San Jose, Costa Rica; Gurgaon, India; Hoboken, NJ; Mexico City, Mexico; Reston, VA; Silicon Valley, CA; Seattle, WA; and Tel Aviv, Israel.​ 

Browse currently open roles on Walmart Global Tech’s careers page. 

Know Walmart inside and out.

If you’ve shopped at Walmart, you probably already know a good bit about the product, but research more about Walmart Global Tech, too. Understand Walmart Global Tech’s positioning in the company. Get to know its core values on Walmart's Purpose page, recent happenings on the Walmart Global Tech News page, and current ventures on the Walmart Global Tech blog.

FAQs

How competitive are Walmart Global Tech interviews?

Although Walmart Global Tech interviews are known to be less rigorous than some similarly sized top tech companies in the industry, Walmart interviews are still competitive and challenging. Expect to face a technical online assessment and 3–5 final rounds, where technical questions vary in difficulty from easy to hard. Preparation and studying ahead of time is key to landing a job with Walmart. 

How should I prepare for my interview at Walmart? 

• Plan out examples to behavioral round questions,
• Do an interview dry run in a peer mock interview,
• Study for coding challenges,
• Practice for system design, ML, data, and PM rounds.
• Rehearse your answers to interview questions previously asked at Walmart.

Does Walmart hire students or new grads? 

Yes! Walmart offers paid summer internships for undergraduates, graduates, and MBAs. It also hosts development programs for careers in people and HR, as well as finance and accounting. Walmart offers full-time roles geared to new grads, too. Check out Walmart’s Student Programs page to learn more about these offerings and browse currently open roles.

More Walmart Interview Prep Resources

Exponent has extensive resources to prepare you to feel your best when it comes time for your interview at Walmart:

💬 Brush up on interview questions asked at Walmart