Airbnb · Software engineer · Mid/senior (G8+); often lightened or dropped for new-grad
System Design
Open prompt; you clarify requirements, sketch architecture, model data, and defend tradeoffs
What they actually ask
The question shapes this round uses. Larpy does not read these out. It builds each one from your own resume, because the generic version is the one you have already rehearsed.
- “Design Airbnb / an online lodging marketplace.”
- “Design a reservation and booking system that prevents double-booking, with payments and confirmations.”
- “Design listing search with autocomplete/typeahead.”
- “Design the availability calendar / inventory service with consistency guarantees.”
What this round is judged on
- Requirements · clarifies scope and assumptions first
- Architecture · clean high-level design and data modeling
- Tradeoffs · reasons about consistency, scale, and failure
- Product sense · marketplace-centered design (e.g., preventing double-booking)
- Communication · drives the conversation clearly
Where this round sits
Airbnb’s published process. Lime marks the stage this round runs.
- 01Recruiter phone screen
- 02Technical phone screen
- 03Virtual onsite loopthis round
- 04Hiring committee / debrief
What happens in each stage›
- Recruiter phone screen
- ~30-45 min spoken call covering background, motivation, logistics, level calibration, and an early read on mission/values fit. Not deeply technical.
- Technical phone screen
- ~45-60 min live coding, usually in CoderPad. One LeetCode-medium (occasionally medium-hard); code must be complete and runnable, and the interviewer traces/executes it. Some pipelines use an automated assessment (HackerRank/CodeSignal) instead or in addition.
- Virtual onsite loop
- ~4-5 rounds: typically 1-2 live-coding rounds, a code-review round on real PRs, a system design round (mid/senior), and 1-2 Core Values / cross-functional behavioral rounds. Exact count and coding-vs-code-review split vary by team and level.
- Hiring committee / debrief
- Committee-style debrief; most candidates hear back within ~3-7 days of the onsite. End-to-end process typically ~3-5 weeks.
Sources
Built from what Airbnb publishes about its own process and from real interview data. No leaked question lists. The questions you get are generated against your own resume, so they are not from anyone else's interview.
Official mission 'create a world where anyone can belong anywhere' and the four core values (Champion the Mission, Be a Host, Embrace the Adventure, Be a Cereal Entrepreneur).
Loop composition (recruiter screen, technical phone screen, onsite coding, system design, code review, core values) and the runnable-code expectation.
How core values are applied in-loop and the cross-functional weighting of the values assessment.
General SWE coding topics and pattern-based prep (Grind 75); confirms no Airbnb-specific company-tagged questions exist here.
Sources last checked . Hiring loops change, so this date is the honest limit on everything above.
Other Airbnb rounds
- Recruiter Screen
Conversational and recruiter-led, friendly and low-push
- Technical Phone Screen (Coding)
One problem in a shared editor
- Onsite Coding
Live coding in a shared editor
- Code Review
Screen-shared review of real pull-request-style code seeded with bugs, security issues, readability problems, and design concerns
- Core Values (Cross-functional)
Run by a trained cross-functional interviewer from another team and weighted on par with the technical rounds