Agoda Bangkok interview experience, Staff Software Engineer July-Aug 2025
Summary
I recently interviewed for a Staff Software Engineer role at Agoda in Bangkok, undergoing multiple rounds including coding, system design, architectural design, and behavioral questions. My coding and problem-solving skills received strong positive feedback, and I appreciated Agoda's detailed feedback process.
Full Experience
I recently went through the interview process for a Staff Software Engineer position at Agoda in Bangkok. The journey started with a screening call from a recruiter who focused on my motivation for joining Agoda and relocating to Bangkok, as well as my general experience. It was a pleasant conversation, and confidence seemed key here.
Next, I had a HackerRank round which consisted of three coding problems in an hour. I encountered a question about pairs with a minimum absolute difference K, a classic 'Count Palindromic Substrings' problem where I passed all test cases but struggled with optimization, and a binary search problem very similar to 'Koko Eating Bananas' which I solved efficiently. I received strong feedback on my coding and problem-solving abilities for this round.
The 'Platform Round' was quite unique, focusing on system design, REST API design, code reviews, and QA. For system design, I was given an existing booking/data fetching system and tasked with identifying and proposing improvements like adding load balancers, rate limiters, or message queues. Connectivity management involved discussing how to improve REST APIs, various authentication types, and maintaining robust, secure sessions. There was also a code review task on a basic booking API implementation, where I suggested applying a strategy pattern and better error and exception handling.
The 'Architectural Round' was an hour-long deep dive into high-level design. I had to design a system for concert booking, similar to a flash sale system. The discussion focused on trade-offs, potential bottlenecks, and scalability. Metrics and telemetry were also heavily emphasized throughout this discussion.
Finally, the 'Values Round' was the longest, lasting 1.5 hours. It delved into behavioral aspects, covering topics like mentorship, learning from mistakes, experimentation, trade-offs, and conflict resolution.
Overall, Agoda's recruiters were very helpful, providing detailed feedback and even study resources for each round, which I found incredibly beneficial.
Interview Questions (9)
Given a set of numbers, find pairs such that the absolute difference between elements in each pair is equal to a given value K. The problem was described as a basic question.
Given an existing booking or data fetching system design, the task was to identify areas for improvement.
This involved suggesting architectural enhancements such as:
- Adding load balancers (LB)
- Implementing rate limiters
- Integrating message queues
The specific improvements depended on the design presented during the interview.
Discuss potential improvements for REST APIs, explore different types of authentication mechanisms, and explain strategies for managing robust and secure connectivity sessions.
Review a basic implementation of a booking API and provide corrections or suggestions for improvement.
Design a system for concert booking, conceptually similar to a flash sale system.
The discussion focused on demonstrating overall design skills, including:
- Analyzing trade-offs
- Identifying potential bottlenecks
- Planning for scalability
I was advised to start with a basic design and gradually introduce scaling considerations as the discussion progressed.
Detailed discussions focused on system metrics and telemetry throughout the architectural design process.
A series of behavioral questions covering topics such as mentorship, learning from past mistakes, experimenting with new ideas, navigating trade-offs, and handling workplace conflicts.
Preparation Tips
Agoda recruiters were incredibly helpful, providing detailed feedback and specific study materials, including documentation and relevant links, for each interview round. This guidance was instrumental in my preparation.