Airbnb
Online marketplace for lodging with strong data science and infrastructure.
4 Rounds
~21 Days
Hard
The Interview Loop
Recruiter Screen (30 min)
Standard fit check, behavioral questions, and resume overview.
Technical Loop (3-4 Rounds)
Deep dive into domain knowledge, coding, and system design.
Interview Question Bank
Data Scientist
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Behavioral
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medium
Tell me about a time you had to advocate for a data-driven decision that contradicted the intuition of a Product Manager or leadership.
#Stakeholder Management
#Communication
#Data Advocacy
Data Scientist
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Behavioral
•
easy
Describe a time when you had to explain a complex statistical concept (like p-values or confidence intervals) to a completely non-technical stakeholder.
#Cross-functional Collaboration
#Storytelling
Data Scientist
•
Behavioral
•
medium
Airbnb values being a 'Cereal Entrepreneur'. Tell me about a time you identified a problem outside your direct scope of work and took the initiative to solve it.
#Initiative
#Ownership
#Core Values
Data Scientist
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Coding
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medium
Given a 'searches' table and a 'bookings' table, write a SQL query to calculate the search-to-booking conversion rate for each city over the past 30 days, considering only searches that resulted in a booking within 7 days of the search.
#Joins
#Date Functions
#Aggregations
#Conversion Rate
Data Scientist
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Coding
•
hard
Write a SQL query to find all hosts who have had 3 or more consecutive cancelled bookings. You are given a 'bookings' table with booking_id, host_id, created_at, and status ('completed', 'cancelled').
#Window Functions
#Gaps and Islands
#Advanced SQL
Data Scientist
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Coding
•
medium
Given a list of user session logs represented as tuples (user_id, timestamp, action), write a Python function to calculate the average session length. A session ends if there is 30 minutes of inactivity.
#Data Structures
#Parsing
#Python
#Time Complexity
Data Scientist
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System Design
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hard
How would you design the machine learning system for Airbnb's 'Smart Pricing' feature, which suggests optimal nightly rates to hosts?
#Regression
#Feature Engineering
#Dynamic Pricing
#Model Architecture
Data Scientist
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System Design
•
hard
How would you design the search ranking algorithm for Airbnb Experiences? What features would you use, and how would you balance relevance with exploring new experiences?
#Search & Ranking
#Recommendation Systems
#Explore/Exploit
Data Scientist
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Technical
•
medium
Airbnb is considering changing its host cancellation policy to penalize hosts more heavily for last-minute cancellations. How would you design an experiment to test this policy change?
#A/B Testing
#Experiment Design
#Marketplace Dynamics
Data Scientist
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Technical
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hard
Due to new local regulations in Paris, Airbnb had to restrict the maximum nights a host can rent out their entire home. We couldn't run an A/B test. How would you measure the causal impact of this regulation on overall booking revenue in Paris?
#Difference-in-Differences
#Synthetic Control
#Observational Data
Data Scientist
•
Technical
•
medium
You notice that the booking conversion rate in Tokyo has dropped by 15% week-over-week. Walk me through exactly how you would investigate the root cause.
#Root Cause Analysis
#Data Segmentation
#Metrics
Data Scientist
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Technical
•
medium
We ran an A/B test for a new checkout flow. The results show a statistically significant increase in the number of bookings, but a statistically significant decrease in total Gross Booking Value (GBV). What would you recommend we do?
#Trade-offs
#Business Strategy
#Statistical Significance
Data Scientist
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Technical
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medium
How do you handle seasonality and special events (like the Olympics or Taylor Swift concerts) when forecasting daily active users (DAU) and bookings on the Airbnb platform?
#Forecasting
#Seasonality
#Anomaly Detection
#Prophet/ARIMA
Data Scientist
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Technical
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hard
Airbnb wants to launch a referral program where existing hosts invite new hosts. How would you design an A/B test for this, keeping in mind that adding more hosts in a city might take bookings away from existing hosts?
#Network Effects
#Marketplace Interference
#Cluster Randomization
Data Scientist
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Technical
•
medium
We are planning to launch the 'Flexible Dates' search feature, allowing users to search without exact dates. What metrics would you define to evaluate the success of this launch?
#KPIs
#Feature Launch
#User Behavior
Difficulty Radar
Based on recent AI-sourced data.
Meet Your Interviewers
The "Standard" Interviewer
Senior EngineerFocuses on core competencies, system constraints, and clear communication.
SimulateUnwritten Rules
Think Out Loud
Always explain your thought process before writing code or drawing architecture.