The Top Airbnb Software Engineer Interview Questions You Need to Know

The coding interviews at Airbnb are really challenging. The questions are difficult, specific to Airbnb, and cover a wide range of topics.

The good news is that the right preparation can make a big difference. We looked at a lot of software engineer interview questions that Airbnb job candidates sent us to find out what kinds of questions were asked most often. Below, weve provided a curated list of real example questions, including free solutions.

You’ll also find preparation tips and links to the best resources, so you can plan your study better and improve your chances of getting that Airbnb software engineer job.

Getting hired as a software engineer at Airbnb is no easy feat As one of the most innovative and disruptive companies in the tech industry, Airbnb only accepts the best of the best Their rigorous interview process is specifically designed to assess not just your technical skills, but also your problem-solving abilities, communication skills, and cultural fit.

In this comprehensive guide, I’ll be sharing the most common Airbnb software engineering interview questions that you’re likely to encounter, along with tips on how to ace each one. With the right preparation, you’ll be equipped to tackle any curveballs they throw your way and land your dream job at this unicorn startup!

Overview of the Airbnb Software Engineer Interview Process

Before we dive into specific questions, let’s briefly overview what to expect during the hiring process at Airbnb. Here are the key stages

Initial Screening Call: This 30 minute call with a recruiter covers your background, resume points and assesses basic technical knowledge.
Technical Phone Interview: 1 hour call focused on data structures, algorithms and object oriented programming. Expect coding exercises on platforms like CoderPad.
Take Home Assignment: You’ll have 1 week to complete an extensive coding project that resembles real-world work.
Onsite Interview: 4-5 hour onsite interview including system design, debugging questions and behavioral interviews.

The process is rigorous but remember – Airbnb wants to set you up for success! Be confident in yourself and prepare thoroughly. Now let’s look at some of the most frequently asked coding questions during Airbnb interviews.

Technical Coding Questions

These questions test your programming capabilities – expect coding exercises and practical scenarios where you have to write actual code. Here are some examples:

Q1. Reverse a Linked List

This is a common coding problem to assess your fundamentals with data structures and algorithms. Here is one approach:

python

def reverseList(head):  current = head  prev = None    while current:    nextNode = current.next     current.next = prev        prev = current    current = nextNode  return prev

Create pointers current and prev. Initialize current to head of list.
In a loop, reverse the next pointer of current to point to prev.
Move both pointers forward.
Return prev which now points to reversed list.

Q2. Implement a Parking Lot

This systems design question tests your OOP skills. Consider classes like ParkingLot, Level, ParkingSpot etc.

ParkingLot has methods like getAvailableSpots(), parkVehicle() etc.
Level represents a floor in the lot.
ParkingSpot represents a single spot with attributes like spotType, isAvailable() etc.

Focus on object relationships and APIs. Implement core functionality. Discuss extensions like parking rates and discounts.

Q3. Optimize Search Ranking Algorithm

Ranking search results is a key part of Airbnb’s product. You may be asked to improve relevancy given factors like:

User preferences
Listing details
Price
Availability
Location

Suggest solutions like:

Machine learning to learn from user behavior
Location-based filtering
Personalized ranking based on past activity
A/B testing different algorithms

Discuss tradeoffs between accuracy, speed and scalability.

System Design Questions

These questions evaluate your broader engineering skills like architecture, scalability and reliability.

Q4. Design Airbnb Messaging Platform

Major aspects to discuss:

Functional requirements: 1:1 chat, group messages, media sharing, offline messaging

Scale: Millions of daily active users sending billions of messages

API design: REST APIs for message CRUD operations

Database: Relational DB like MySQL for structured data; NoSQL DB like MongoDB for unstructured data like chats

Caching: CDNs and Redis to cache commonly accessed messages

Load balancing: Spread traffic across servers, auto-scaling

Notifications: Push notifications on message receipt

Go broad first, then deep dive into components.

Q5. Design Payments System

Areas to cover:

Payment workflow: Guest booking, host accepting, payment processing steps
Security: Encryption, tokens, 2-factor authentication
Fraud detection: Analyze patterns, flag suspicious activity
Reliability: Distributed architecture, robust error handling
Scalability: Load balancing, horizontal scaling
Microservices: Independent payment processing microservices

Discuss end-to-end workflow, highlight security challenges, suggest reliability enhancements.

Behavioral Questions

Along with technical skills, Airbnb also evaluates your people skills and culture fit through behavioral questions.

Q6. Tell me about a time you overcame an engineering challenge.

Set the context by describing the challenge you faced. E.g. bug in production affecting customers.
Discuss your systematic approach to resolving it. E.g. log analysis, hypothetical reasoning, collaborating with team.
Share the end result. E.g. identified root cause, implemented fix, prevented recurrence.
Conclude with key learnings. E.g. importance of monitoring, automated testing.

Q7. How do you balance perfectionism with pragmatism?

Acknowledge the importance of high standards for quality.
However, highlight that excessive perfectionism can delay output and hinder progress.
Discuss leveraging rapid prototypes, MVPs, agile processes to balance quality with speed and pragmatism.
Share an example of overcoming perfectionism to deliver business value.
Conclude that pragmatism allows the rapid iteration critical for tech products.

The key is proving you can maintain high quality while exercising good judgment on what’s viable within constraints.

Take-Home Assignment Tips

Expect an intensive take-home project resembling real work at Airbnb. Some tips:

Read requirements carefully: Clarify any doubts beforehand.
** modular design**: Break into logical components for readability.
Implement core functionality: Focus on must-haves first.
Write clean code: Follow style guides and conventions.
Testing: Include unit tests and edge cases.
Document: Explain design choices, tradeoffs and assumptions.
QA: Review, refactor and polish before submitting.

Final Words of Advice

Preparing for software engineering interviews at Airbnb requires rigorous and consistent practice over time. Here are a few closing tips:

Thoroughly study data structures and algorithms – these form the base of most technical questions.
Practice system design using real-world examples and constraints.
Prepare stories highlighting your problem-solving abilities, teamwork and communication skills.
Research Airbnb’s mission, culture and products so you understand their priorities and can align your answers accordingly.

Stay confident through the process – you’ve got this! Use these common Airbnb software engineer interview questions as a roadmap for your preparation. With diligent practice, you’ll be ready to ace the interview and kickstart your career at one of tech’s most admired companies. Best of luck!

Frequency of entities:

airbnb: 31
software engineer: 15
interview: 28
questions: 16
system design: 6
coding: 7
take home: 4
behavioral: 2
process: 3
technical: 5
preparation: 2
advice: 2
tips: 3
systems: 2
challenges: 2
scale: 2
tradeoffs: 2

2 System design questions

In addition to coding questions, you may also face system design questions during your Airbnb interviews. The coding questions weve covered above usually have a single optimal solution. But the system design questions youll be asked are typically more open-ended and feel more like a discussion.

You want to show that you can be creative and organized at the same time in this part of the show. In most cases, your interviewer will adapt the question to your background. For instance, if youve worked on an API product theyll ask you to design an API. This doesn’t always happen, though, so you should be ready to design any kind of system or product.

Below youll find a list of example system design questions. It’s hard to find Airbnb system design questions that are open to the public, so we’ve put together a list of common questions from Google, Facebook, and Amazon that you can find on Glassdoor.

These questions might not be exactly the same as the ones you’ll be asked at Airbnb, but the skills and ideas you’ll be tested on will be the same, so feel free to use these as practice.

To learn more about how to answer system design questions, read this guide. Here are some practice questions for system design questions.

Example system design questions

How would you design Googles database for web indexing
How would you design a ticketing platform
How would you make a system that keeps track of how many times YouTube videos are clicked on?
How would you design Instagram / Instagram Stories
How would you design Facebook
How would you design Twitters trending topics
How would you design a warehouse system for Amazon.com
How would you design Dropbox
How would you make a Fortnite ranking system that works in real time?

Finally, youll be asked behavioral interview questions during your Airbnb interviews. Airbnb tends to emphasize candidate “fit” during their behavioral interviews. So, as you prepare, youll want to get familiar with the companys culture. In addition, youll need to know the companys mission and values and be able to articulate how you embody them.

Below is a list of behavioral interview questions that were asked at Airbnb according to data from Glassdoor. Just so you know, we’ve changed a few of the questions below to make them clearer, shorter, and faster. Once you can consistently answer the questions below, you will have a great start on getting ready for your Airbnb behavioral interview questions.

Example behavioral questions asked at Airbnb

Why do you think Airbnb has the values it does?
What does “belong anywhere” mean to you?
Tell me about a time youve been a good host
What was the most important thing you did on a project in the past?
What have you built?
What was the hardest project you worked on in the past six months?
How do you give back to the community?
Tell me about a time you had to break bad news to someone.
What do you like about Airbnb?
What is one thing youd like to remove from Airbnb?

Interview process and timeline

Whats the Airbnb software engineer interview process and timeline? It typically takes 2-5 weeks (according to Glassdoor data), but could take as long as 8+ weeks in some cases. Below are the usual steps in the process:

Now that you know the big picture, let’s look more closely at the different steps of Airbnb’s software engineer interview process so that you can get a better sense of it.

Step one is getting an Airbnb interview in the first place. In this guide were focusing primarily on the interviews, so well keep this portion brief. You will need a good resume and cover letter that are specifically made for SWE jobs and Airbnb in particular.

Click here to see our free guide to optimizing your SWE resume.

Once you have your documents together you can submit your application. Also, if you can, it can be helpful to have an Airbnb employee or contact put you in touch with the hiring team.

Once your application is approved by Airbnb, then youll hear from a recruiter (usually through email).

When the recruiter reaches out to you, theyll often ask you to complete a HackerRank coding challenge. Not all candidates are asked to do this, but its pretty typical. The challenge itself is about 1-hour long, and there will be several test cases you need to pass.

If youd like to learn more about HackerRank, you can familiarize yourself with some of the challenges that are publicly posted on their website.

You’ll move on to the next step of the process if the recruiter and HackerRank challenge go well.

Youll face 1-2 technical phone screens with a peer or a potential manager at Airbnb. Theyll ask you typical data structure and algorithm questions which youll have to solve in a text editor.

If you want to get a better idea of the kinds of questions you might be asked during your Airbnb interviews, read the part of this guide that gives examples of coding questions.

If you make it through the first round, you’ll spend a day at one of Airbnb’s offices and have 4-6 interviews there.

You can expect about 2 of your onsite interviews to focus on coding questions (i. e. data structure and algorithm questions).

Youll also typically have 2-3 behavioral interviews during your onsite visit. When you go through behavioral interviews, they will ask you about both your past work experience and how well you “fit” in with the company culture.

Airbnb puts a large emphasis on these types of behavioral questions, so youll want to make sure youre well prepared for questions like “Tell me about a difficult project you worked on” or “Why Airbnb?”. Its also a good idea to familiarize yourself with Airbnbs mission and core values, which you can read about on their website.

During your on-sites, you may have a system design interview in addition to your coding and behavioral interviews. All candidates are expected to do very well on the coding and behavior questions. However, if you’re applying for a junior position, the system design questions will not be as difficult as those for mid-level or senior engineers. You can learn more about system design questions later in this guide.

Finally, site visits usually last all day, so lunch will probably be part of the package.

After your onsite interviews, your job as a candidate is finished. After that, all you have to do is wait to hear back from Airbnb and hopefully get your job offer.

The types of questions youll face during your Airbnb interviews can be broken down into 3 broad categories:

Coding questions
System design questions
Behavioral questions

If you want to get an offer from Airbnb, you should be ready for all of these kinds of questions. So you can get ready, we’ve put together a list of interview questions from each group for you to work on.

Lets start with coding questions. Below weve compiled a list of coding interview questions. These questions come from Airbnb interview reports that were posted on Glassdoor. For each question, we changed the way it was asked to make it more like a Leetcode problem. We have also linked to a related free solution on Leetcode for each question.

Before you dive into Airbnbs coding questions, theres something else youll want to know. Some tech companies will let you use “quasi-code” or “general” questions in your coding interview, so you don’t have to run your code. But at Airbnb, youll have to write code that will actually run and also pass test cases.

Finally, read this guide on how to answer coding interview questions and practice with this list of coding interview examples along with the ones below.

“Given a list of unique integer candidates and a target integer, return a list of all the unique ways that the candidates’ numbers can be put together to equal the target.” ” (Solution).
“We are given an elevation map with heights[i] showing how high the ground is at that point.” The width at each index is 1. What is the amount of water at each index after V units of water fall at index K?” The answer is
“You are given some lists of regions, and the first region on each list contains all the other regions on that list.” Find the smallest area that fits both of the given regions, region1 and region2. ” (Solution).
“You have to come up with a file system that lets you make new paths and give them different values.” ” (Solution).
It’s planned that each of the n jobs will be done from startTime[i] to endTime[i], making a profit of profit[i]. You are given the startTime, endTime, and profit arrays. You need to show the most money you can make while making sure that no two jobs in the subset have time ranges that overlap. ” (Solution).
“Design and implement an iterator to flatten a 2d vector. It should support the following operations: next and hasNext. ” (Solution).
You are given a list of unique words. Please return all the pairs of distinct indices (i, j) in that list such that words[i] + words[j] is a palindrome. ” (Solution).
“There are different-value coins and a total amount of money given to you.” Here’s a function that can help you figure out how many coins you need to make that amount. If you can’t find any way to make up that much money with coins, return -1. ” (Solution).
“Given a puzzle board, return the smallest number of moves needed to solve the puzzle.” If the board’s state can’t be solved, return -1. ” (Solution).
“There are n cities connected by m flights. All of the flights cost w and leave from city u and arrive at v. You have all the cities and flights, along with the starting city (src) and the destination (dst). Your job is to find the cheapest way to get from src to dst with as few stops as possible (k). If there is no such route, output -1. ” (Solution).

Airbnb Interview Questions with Answer Examples

FAQ

How hard is it to get into Airbnb as a software engineer?

Coding questions at Airbnb tend to be on the hard side. You’ll get a coding challenge following the recruiter phone screen, and about half the onsite will be devoted to coding, so spend more time practicing here to maximize your chances of success.

How to prepare for an Airbnb interview?

The interviewer may ask you about your availability and if you are able to travel for an in-person interview. Prepare some questions for the interviewer as well, so that you are ready when given the chance. Ask about Airbnb as a company, the job position, and what the hiring process is like.

How hard are Airbnb interviews?

The interview process for Airbnb heavily depends on what position you’re going out for, but one thing they all have in common: they’re tough. Expect 3 rounds, including both a 5-hour onsite and a take-home assessment.

Does Airbnb ask LeetCode questions?

Airbnb does have rounds evaluating your Computer Science fundamentals by asking LeetCode-style questions.

What is the interview process for a software engineer at Airbnb?

Usually, the interview process for the Software engineer role at Airbnb consists of 4 rounds as under: LAUNCH your dream career! It’s an online test that candidates have to get through to qualify for the interview rounds. There will be 3 coding questions to be answered within 120 minutes. The difficulty level of the questions is generally medium.

How do I get a job at Airbnb?

If you crack the first round, the next step is to spend a day at one of Airbnb’s offices and to participate in 4-6 onsite interviews. You can expect about 2 of your onsite interviews to focus on coding questions (i.e. data structure and algorithm questions). You’ll also typically have 2-3 behavioral interviews during your onsite visit.

What is the interview process like at Airbnb?

I interviewed at Airbnb (San Jose, CA) in Apr 2022 good but not know why fail. in the onsite round, there are four parts. two coding questions, one system design, one project part interview with the manager. all the interviwers are good, except the second one. I applied online. The process took 4 weeks.

How long is a coding interview at Airbnb?

Next, you’ll do a coding round. It will like last about 45 minutes and you’ll be expected to answer medium / hard Leetcode questions. Coding interviews at Airbnb can be very challenging – no pseudocode here, so be sure to prepare at a level of detail that means your code will pass test cases.