I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Sainsbury’s in June 2026
Interview
Had an initial call with hiring manager then two 1 hour interviews; one technical and one leadership competency. Technical interview involved interpreting one SQL and one Python code and talking about how you would improve it. A small case study based on business drivers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Leadership interview was based around past examples managing or mentoring someone, giving and receiving feedback and stakeholder management.
I applied online. I interviewed at Sainsbury’s in Feb 2026
Interview
The recruiter call included asking Python and SQL proficiency. The next step was a technical live coding test with Python and SQL questions. The Python bit was easy with basic syntax - create dataframe, filter columns and rows, drop nulls. For SQL, you had to explain what some code was doing- difference between partition and group by, and then had to write a query to perform a ratio calculation. There were also a couple of chart interpretations which were very basic. For the last round, you had to prepare a business case study to present after which there were a few follow-up questions, and then a competency interview with questions related to their leadership performance expectations
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Motivation to work here, value you bring to stakeholders, working with diverse views, prioritisation strategy
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Sainsbury’s (London, England) in Mar 2023
Interview
Disappointing . Similar process of another review for "Data Analyst" in October 2020. Interviewed for a position based in the Holborn office in March 2023. Two stages, fully remote. For the final interview I had to prepare a presentation on the analysis of delivery picker's data, which was pretty challenging. Initially the process seems very professional, with automatic reminders for the interview, in reality the people in the panel did not match what mentioned in the email, the format of the second interview was different from what they said (I expected a live test, they asked me competency questions). I was told the process would be quick, but it's never ending, took 3 weeks in total. Also, I never heard back from them, they didn't even let me know the outcome and they don't reply to reminders. So much for the claims of the "great company culture" during the interview and the question about my experience on "constructive feedback".
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- Tell me about a time when you came up against an obstacle - Tell me about a time when you put someone else's feedback to good use and develop yourself - Tell me about a time when you've given constructive feedback