Target Lead Enginner Interview Experience | May 4th, 2026
Summary
I interviewed for a Lead Engineer role at Target and was asked to design a product rating and review service. I did not receive any follow‑up, so I assume I was not selected.
Full Experience
Timeline - May 4th, 2026 YOE (then) : 8.5+ Years Current (Most Recent Company) : SMTS(IC3) at Oracle (Laid off in September 2025) College - IITK
R1 (High Level Design with a Lead Engineer who has 20 years Exp) - Design a service using which customer can rate (provide ratings and write reviews) for the products they have bought using target e-commerce. The service should also be able to provide the feedback based on the reviews/ratings to the team/owner of particular product so based on those feedback the product team members can get incentives or improve the product. Also in the end he asked How would i scopre and estimates if I am actually doing this project, timeline estimations with a team of how many etc?
- I followed the HelloIntrview Framework and I think I was able to answer well and satisfy the functional and non-functional requirements which I defined myself. The interviewer didn't probe much and kept listening to what I had to say. May be probably because he was from majorly a QA background rather than proper Backend software engineering role. Even though he really seemed like a nice guy.
Final verdict - I still didn't hear anything from them and neither did I try to follow up. So I beleive it's a rejection, or may be they might be interviewing a lot of candidates and want to choose the best one among them.
Interview Questions (1)
Design a product rating and review service
Design a service for an e‑commerce platform where customers can submit ratings and written reviews for products they have purchased. The service must also aggregate feedback and provide insights to product owners so they can reward teams or improve products based on the collected data. Additionally, discuss how to scope and estimate the project, including timeline and team size.
Preparation Tips
I followed the HelloInterview Framework to prepare for the interview, focusing on defining functional and non‑functional requirements and practicing system design articulation.