Airbnb Interview Questions

Airbnb Interview Questions

Practice 124 real Airbnb interview questions for 2026 — Airbnb interview questions drawn from real onsites with detailed solutions. Covers the top categories: Coding & Algorithms, System Design, Behavioral & Leadership, Analytics & Experimentation, and Data Manipulation (SQL/Python). This guide explains what’s distinctive about Airbnb interviews, what teams evaluate (clarity of code, product sense, experimentation rigor, and cross-functional judgment), what to expect in each round, and how to structure your interview preparation to maximize impact. For Software Engineer roles (the majority of questions), expect heavy coding and design: text-layout and query-parsing problems, split-stay/exact-layover booking logic, booking-system and banking-ledger designs, graph/shortest-path puzzles (maze and downhill-run problems), board-game and permutation constraints, plus live code-review exercises. Data Scientists see rigorous experiment and causality work — A/B test design with clustering, browse/booking metric computation in Python and SQL, causal regressions, panel builds, and global-launch impact estimation. Machine Learning Engineers focus on production models like photo/listing quality and minimizing booking edge cases. Backend and PM interviews emphasize marketplace backend design and product metrics. Prep by practicing medium-to-hard algorithms, system design tradeoffs with strong product rationale, and hands-on SQL/Python experiment analyses.

124 Questions 1 Company08.01.2026
Showing 20 results
Role
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Design mutable sum-tree with fast queries

You're given a rooted, mutable tree. Each leaf node stores an integer value. Each internal node's value equals the sum of its immediate children's val...

Coding & Algorithms
21
0
183 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Maximize path score in DAG

Question Given a weighted directed acyclic graph (DAG) where each node v has a score w(v) and each edge (u→v) has a time cost t(u,v), starting from no...

Coding & Algorithms
18
0
226 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Compute shortest path to collect all keys

You are given an m×n grid containing walls (#), open cells (.), a single start cell (@), up to six keys labeled 'a'–'f', and matching doors 'A'–'F' th...

Coding & Algorithms
9
0
105 people solved
Jul 31, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Design and implement Connect Four engine

Design and implement a Connect Four game engine. Use a default 6x7 board and two players. Provide an API with: drop(col, player) returning the row pla...

Coding & Algorithms
14
0
125 people solved
Jul 16, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Discuss Airbnb motivations, hosting, feedback, community, challenges

Discuss Airbnb motivations, hosting, feedback, community, challenges Airbnb Software Engineer Onsite — Behavioral & Leadership You are interviewing fo...

Behavioral & Leadership
10
0
86 people solved
Jul 16, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Hard
Software Engineer

Solve a Two-by-Three Sliding Puzzle

Solve a Two-by-Three Sliding Puzzle You are given a 2 x 3 board containing the integers 0 through 5 exactly once. The value 0 is the empty square. In ...

Coding & Algorithms
1
0
10 people solved
Apr 21, 2026
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Hard
Software Engineer

Flatten a Nested Integer List

Flatten a Nested Integer List A nested list contains either integers or other nested lists, to arbitrary depth. Return all integers in left-to-right o...

Coding & Algorithms
1
0
13 people solved
Apr 21, 2026
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Hard
Software Engineer

Count Consecutive Positive Integer Sums

Count Consecutive Positive Integer Sums Given a positive integer n, return the number of ways to write n as a sum of one or more consecutive positive ...

Coding & Algorithms
1
0
10 people solved
Apr 21, 2026
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Solve Linked-List and Iterator Problems

You are asked to solve two coding problems. Problem 1: Detect shared nodes between possibly cyclic linked lists You are given the heads of two singly ...

Coding & Algorithms
10
0
99 people solved
Apr 8, 2026
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Compute board-game score from regions

This question evaluates grid traversal and connected-component identification skills along with region-based aggregation (counting cells and summing c...

Coding & Algorithms
44
1
536 people solved
Feb 12, 2026
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Find smallest permutation under constraints

This question evaluates digit-manipulation and combinatorial permutation skills, along with numeric ordering and representation concerns such as leadi...

Coding & Algorithms
37
2
349 people solved
Feb 12, 2026
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Hard
Software Engineer

Compute maze score using shortest path

You are given a grid-based maze game. - The maze is an R x C grid of characters: - '#' = wall (cannot pass) - '.' = empty cell - 'S' = current p...

Coding & Algorithms
24
1
182 people solved
Jan 19, 2026
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Data Scientist

Build panel in SQL; run causal regression

Assume today is 2025-09-01 (UTC). Schema and small samples: users(user_id INT, country STRING, signup_date DATE, platform STRING) Sample: user_id | co...

Data Manipulation (SQL/Python)
0
0
6 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Solve and optimize menu combo DP

Given up to N different menu items, each with a unit price, and a list of combo offers where each offer specifies quantities for some items and a tota...

Coding & Algorithms
5
0
23 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Maximize tokens from nested crates

You are given n crates, each either locked or unlocked. Each crate i contains: an integer tokens[i]; a list of keys that can unlock other crates; and ...

Coding & Algorithms
22
1
233 people solved
Aug 12, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Implement Connect Four game

Question Design and implement the Connect Four game board, player moves, and winner-detection logic. Discuss time/space complexity and possible follow...

Coding & Algorithms
22
0
199 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Verify and modify inorder subsequence

Question Given a binary tree and a sequence of numbers, design an algorithm to check in O(n) time and O( 1) extra space whether the sequence is a subs...

Coding & Algorithms
16
1
131 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Solve palindrome pairs and key path

Question LeetCode 336. Palindrome Pairs; LeetCode 864. Shortest Path to Get All Keys https://leetcode.com/problems/palindrome-pairs/description/ https...

Coding & Algorithms
8
0
14 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Find palindrome-forming string pairs

Given an array of distinct lowercase strings words, return all index pairs (i, j) with i != j such that the concatenation words[i] + words[j] is a pal...

Coding & Algorithms
12
0
87 people solved
Jul 31, 2025
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Medium
Software Engineer

Implement Connect Four with win detection

Implement a Connect Four game engine. Support a general m×n board (default 6× 7) and a win condition of k in a row (default 4). Provide an API: Connec...

Coding & Algorithms
17
0
107 people solved
Jul 31, 2025

Frequently Asked Questions

How difficult are Airbnb interview questions (for these 124 real Airbnb interview questions)?
Airbnb interview questions in this 124-question set range from medium to hard, with difficulty skewed toward production-ready engineering and applied analytics. Software Engineer problems are often medium-to-hard algorithmic puzzles that require clean, efficient implementations and complexity reasoning; system-design prompts expect solid tradeoff analysis for real-world services. Data Scientist problems emphasize causal thinking, robust metrics and experiment diagnostics; ML Engineer prompts focus on model design and evaluation for product quality. Overall, you should expect time-constrained problem solving plus product-oriented discussion — the bar rewards correctness, clarity, product sense, and measurable impact rather than exotic tricks.
What is the Airbnb interview process and where do Airbnb interview questions appear in the loop?
The typical Airbnb loop starts with a recruiter screen, then a technical phone or take-home assessment, followed by an engineering loop of roughly 4–6 interviews and a final debrief. Coding & Algorithms and System Design questions usually appear in the technical rounds early in the loop for Software and Backend Engineers; a code-review or implementation exercise is often present. Behavioral and leadership questions run alongside technical rounds and influence team fit. For Data Scientists you will see analytics, SQL and A/B testing rounds; ML Engineers see modeling and product-quality design; Product Managers and cross-functional roles get product-sense and metric-definition questions.
How should I structure a preparation timeline for Airbnb interview preparation?
A focused six-week timeline works well: weeks 1–2 strengthen core coding patterns, data structures, and timed practice; week 3 concentrates on medium-hard algorithm problems and complexity tradeoffs; week 4 pivots to system design fundamentals and service tradeoffs with mock design interviews; week 5 covers analytics, SQL, experiment design, and machine-learning diagnostics; week 6 polishes behavioral stories, domain-specific themes from Airbnb questions, and full mock loops. Include weekly mock interviews, code review practice, and at least one end-to-end loop simulation to build stamina and refine communication under time pressure.
What key subtopics will Airbnb interview questions test across roles?
Across roles Airbnb emphasizes a few recurring themes. For Software Engineers expect graph and pathfinding problems, constrained permutations and combinatorics, text parsing/layout tasks, and booking-orchestration designs like layover or group booking systems; code-review and board-game style logic also recur. Data Scientists face experiment design, clustered A/B testing, robust primary and guardrail metrics, causal regressions, panel-building in SQL, browsing and conversion metric computation, and launch-impact estimation. ML Engineers are asked about photo and listing quality models and product-focused objective minimization. Backend roles focus on scalable rental marketplace architecture and transactional consistency.
What standout tips and common pitfalls should I know for Airbnb interview questions?
Standout tips: start by clarifying requirements and success metrics, state assumptions aloud, outline tradeoffs, and connect technical choices to product impact. For coding, write correct, readable code with edge cases and complexity analysis; for design and analytics, propose measurable guardrails and diagnostics. Common pitfalls include skipping clarified constraints, optimizing prematurely, weak data-quality checks in experiments, neglecting failure modes or consistency in backend designs, and giving behavioral answers without concrete impact metrics. Practice end-to-end loops, rehearse Airbnb-relevant stories, and run targeted mock interviews that mirror the company’s product-oriented evaluation.

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