AirBnb | SSE | Rejected
Summary
I applied for an SSE role at Airbnb and was rejected after completing an online assessment followed by two coding rounds and a system design interview.
Full Experience
I initiated my application through the Airbnb career portal and was subsequently contacted by an Airbnb recruiter after a few weeks. The initial screening involved an online assessment, which was a Hackerrank test comprising a single graph-based problem. Unfortunately, I don't recall the exact problem statement, but my solution resulted in a Time Limit Exceeded (TLE) error for one test case, although it passed the others.
Following the online assessment, I was invited for further interview rounds. These consisted of two coding rounds, each 45 minutes long, and one system design round, which lasted approximately 60 minutes.
Round 1 (45-min): This round focused on finding the minimum window in a string containing all characters from a given pattern. I initially suggested a brute force approach. With some hints from the interviewer, I managed to develop a more optimal solution, though my code still contained a few bugs.
Round 2 (45-min): The second coding round presented a problem similar to a sliding puzzle. I began with a DFS-based approach, which was suboptimal for this particular question. I then transitioned to a BFS-based approach, which proved to be a better solution. The interviewer pointed out a couple of errors in my code during this round.
Round 3 (System design, 1 hr): For the system design round, the problem involved designing a system to handle current weather data. The scenario was that I would receive weather data at periodic intervals from multiple sub-stations across a country. Each sub-station would provide weather data for its specific region in a defined format. The task was to build a system capable of fetching historical data and providing future weather predictions for a given region. The interviewer was primarily interested in a high-level design. I apologize if the question seems vague; I may have forgotten some of the finer details.
Verdict: I was ultimately rejected due to my performance in the coding rounds. The feedback indicated that they expected optimal solutions with minimal hints.
Interview Questions (3)
Design a system to collect current weather data from multiple sub-stations, store historical data, and provide future weather predictions for given regions. Focus on a high-level architecture.