After applying, there was an online assessment on HackerRank with three questions: 1. a LeetCode-style coding question; 2. making an OpenAPI call and then filtering the results; 3. a fairly complicated SQL question. After that, there was a screening call with a sourcer. The call was scheduled for 30 minutes. She started asking questions right away, such as why Booking, what my day-to-day work looks like, and so on. One question was whether I currently work in an agile methodology. I was not entirely sure whether my current way of working would be considered agile. We have two meetings a week, but not daily stand-ups, so I guessed it would not be considered strictly agile. After that, she asked how many people work at my current company. I said fewer than 20. She then told me that Booking has around 6,000 people in the Amsterdam office and said she did not think I would be able to adapt to that environment. She added that even if I passed the technical rounds, I would very likely fail the culture-fit round, and suggested ending the conversation there. There were a few more exchanges after that, but overall the call ended within 7 minutes, despite being scheduled for 30 minutes.

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.