Airbnb Senior Data Scientist Interview Experience — Analytics Lead Role, Rejected After the Tech Screen

I always land really hard-to-get interviews and then fail them...

My own feeling is that I got this interview because my background was a 90% match with the JD, plus a former coworker referred me.

I had three rounds: recruiter, hiring manager, and tech screen (one case round, and one case-oriented SQL round). According to the recruiter, if I passed the tech screen there would still be a presentation round and two core value behavioral rounds.

I had read the interview reports on this forum and felt the recruiter and HM rounds were both easy to fail, so I prepared carefully for them, thinking through how to answer in a way that showed I was a good fit for the role. The recruiter round did include a question about what my relationship was with the person who referred me.

By the time I got to the tech screen, the role I had originally interviewed for had been filled, and it turned into a lead role requiring eight years of experience (they are all lead roles, some asking for six years and some for eight), and the direction was not that much of a match anymore either (that was the reason the recruiter gave in the rejection letter). About the tech screen: I signed an NDA so I won't give specifics. It was really tricky, and every question was new. I feel like there is no question bank. The interviewer just made the questions up with Claude based on the scope of the position, so they were very targeted. They were not questions from this forum, no relation at all. The case round was also made up with Claude, and I had practiced by simulating with Claude, so I happened to hit something similar. I felt the case round went well.

I didn't expect my SQL, which I am really good at, to be a total mess. The format was: they give a background and a few datasets, and say we want to look at a very general topic (retention, for example). Then they ask how you understand the retention the boss wants, which metric exactly you would use, how you would calculate that metric, and then you write it out based on the datasets. I did not do well on this round. It was also obviously a question the guy made up with Claude himself.

The interviewers were all fine throughout, their attitude was OK. The rejection letter was actually quite warm (facepalm). Truly my dream company, as expected.