The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Booking.com
Interview
I submitted a hacker rank test with no communication to HR. The next day I received an email that they want to conduct an HR interview as my test went very well(I already knew). I picked up a slot but then no communication at all, no confirmation for the interview. The next week I sent another email to HR but still no reply and then after 2 weeks and few more days I sent one last email for status to which HR replied that because of illness there was no reply so lets do interview, pick up a slot. I had a very cold interview, the HR was yawning throughout, not interested in anything I had to say about and in the end just said that they will discuss my case with hiring committee. Maybe I had a career gap which resulted in this but if that was the case why would they waste my time like this. The worst part is that they didn’t even mention my test throughout the process as I am not sure if the HR is even aware that I submitted a test.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Booking.com
Interview
I recently interviewed with Booking.com for a software engineer role. The process was well-organized and took about 3–4 weeks. It started with an online assessment on HackerRank with a couple of LeetCode medium problems. That was followed by a technical screen where I did live coding and discussed basic algorithms. The final round was a full day of back-to-back sessions: algorithmic coding, system design (something like designing a hotel availability checker), a behavioral round using STAR questions, and a chat with a manager about company values. The interviewers were professional and friendly, and the problems felt relevant to Booking's actual business. On the downside, some coding rounds felt repetitive, and I didn't get much feedback after being rejected. Overall, it was a fair but challenging process. My advice: practice medium-level array and hash map problems, review basic system design, and have solid STAR stories ready. I'd rate it 4 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to other engineers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a hotel search and availability system that returns available rooms for a given date range and can handle high traffic.
I applied online. I interviewed at Booking.com (Amsterdam)
Interview
The whole process is composed of about 5 stages. Initial interview, then technical interview, followed by a “ownership” interview, then by a team-fit check interview. The initial interview is done by recruiters not based in the Netherlands (at least my experience) and felt as if the role had already been filled by the time I took it. Was answered with a “I’m doing good, hope you are doing good too. So this interview…” to “Hi, nice to meet you! How are you?”. It simply felt as if they didn’t want to be there and there was 0 engagement.
Screener with a Director, coding round with TDD where you pair with an engineer and have an engineering manager present, behavioural with a senior engineering manager and an apprentice who was sitting it