Booking.com Front End Developer interview questions

After applying I got an email asking me to do an online test. This test was of approximately 10 multiple choice questions about HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Some of the questions in this test were a bit outdated, they didn't take ES2015+ into account and were sometimes about jQuery. This was specially strange given that I was applying for a React position. In any case, I passed the test and a few days later I had a phone call with someone from HR. This call was just like an usual first talk in which you get to know how things work in the company and you can talk about your experience, expectations, knowledge and interests. A few weeks later I had a technical interview with 2 developers via video call. As soon as we started they told me we would start with a programming exercise of about 40 minutes, then they would ask some technical questions and in the end I could ask my own questions. The exercise was about building a form validation function that would work down to IE8. I thought it would be interesting to write it in such a way that it would fall back to browser validation on modern browsers. So I tried as much as possible to make it resemble the existing validation APIs by using input attributes like `type` and `pattern`. However, they didn't seem to like that idea, it sounded like they would rather see a completely custom solution. They sounded actually annoyed that I mentioned solutions that would work as well on modern browsers. I didn't really understand the point of this exercise. It felt like they just wanted to see me coding something without really caring about the engineering of the solution. Which might be fine for people that don't care about the engineering part but that's not the case for me. It was also strange that there was nothing about React in this exercise. They even told me to use jQuery if I needed to. After the exercise they asked me some questions about my current job and also about A/B testing. The latter was quite important for them since they use it extensively at Booking.com. Since this is not something I use at my current job I didn't manage to give satisfactory answers to their questions. When they were done with questions they told me to ask my own questions. I had quite a few things to ask but they didn't really give me the time. After 5 minutes, they interrupted me to tell me that they needed to end the interview because they had to leave the meeting room. And just like that they put an end to it which felt quite unprofessional. One week later I got an email informing me that I didn't pass to the next step and with feedback on my performance in the technical interview. The feedback was quite descriptive which I appreciated. In essence, for anyone planning on applying for booking.com, I would recommend that you focus mostly on your JavaScript knowledge, get acquainted with A/B testing and if engineering is your thing then try to put it aside because they just want you to write something without thinking too much about it.

The hiring process was fast and efficient. I applied online for the position of front end developer. A few days later I received an email with an invitation to do a hacker rank test. The test was short. I had 20 minutes to choose right answers from options on 20 questions. I suppose if you have some experience with front end development you will do the test ok. The same day I received the email with positive feedback about my test and invitation to choose a time for hr phone interview. HR interview was around 30 minutes. I had been answering expected questions - about my previous job experience, why I want to work for booking.com, and theoretical questions about a/b testing. Next was a technical interview via Skype with two developers. It lasted 45 minutes and I was required to implement small Java Script exercise. I used JQuery heavily for this exercise. I was glad that I brushed up my mastery of JQuery prior to the interview. The next day hr called me to provide me with feedback and to say that I am invited to Amsterdam for the final day of interviews. Of course, I was super excited. On interview day in Amsterdam, I spent around 5 hours at booking.com headquarter office. I had 3 interviews - 2 technical and 1 of business awareness. The most interesting technical question was to recreate one of the lodash array functions. Another question was related to the implementation of UI elements on the page. The HR called me a few hours later and invited me to come to the office again the same day in the evening or next morning. I decided that the sooner the better and came back to the office in the evening. Here I got the offer. I want to thanks all the guys and girls who take part in recruiting and interviewing process at booking.com, you do a great job! My recruiting process was a quite positive experience.