I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Booking.com (Amsterdam) in Jan 2016
Interview
First interview was with the HR with, somewhat, unusual questions regarding i.e. improvement of their service or website. It was interesting. When you give your thoughts and suggestions a follow up discussion will follow. After that, a question about recent technological challenge followed. if they are satisfied with your answers then you will be explained what are the next steps and how the technical interview will look like. The lady from HR stated that the problems on second interview will be much harder than the ones on their hackaton.
Second round of interview is a technical one. In this instance there were two interviewers. I had two 2 problems to solve. More about this in the Questions section. What they ask is algorithm, not a working app.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Union of n arrays with x elements. Output common members contained in at least 2 arrays. Explain the complexity of the algorithm used.
We have a digested server log with username, visited page and timestamp. Create a processing algorithm that will output the most visited page/areas in such a way that will match partial path as well.
i.e.
{
{ user: "user1", page="/home" },
{ user: "user1", page="/home/account" },
{ user: "user1", page="/home/account/profile" },
{ user: "user1", page="/home/account/login" },
{ user: "user2", page="/about" },
{ user: "user2", page="/about/contact" },
{ user: "user2", page="/home" }
}
the output
user1
- home/account
- home
user2
- /about
PS
I'm rephrasing because I cannot recall exactly the question
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Booking.com in Dec 2015
Interview
I've sent my resume through a referrer. In a week or less, after my friend have submited my CV on their referral system, I received an email from an HR person from Booking. We scheduled a phone call. Also I received an email from Hackerrank to make an exam.
I made the exam before the scheduled HR call. The exercises were difficult. Be prepared before making them. Don't rush into the exam.
The HR call was nice, the interviewer talked very clear. Asked me about my work experience, and my objectives.
After that, I scheduled a technical interview with Booking. I got really nervous in this interview and got stuck at the first exercise. They were exercises about hashing, mapping, and managing large ammounts of data to query something. Be aware of the Big O notation.
They didn't offered me another interview after this one.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What's the time complexity of your solution? Can you make it linear?
I applied online. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at Booking.com in Feb 2014
Interview
They called me first to assess my English skills and interest, after 20 days they scheduled a technical phone interview with screen sharing. After a month they invited me for a face-to-face interview with all expenses paid, including international travel.