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Company interview guide

Airbnb interview process and practice questions

Airbnb's interviews are known for pairing technical or craft rounds with interviews about its core values, which it publishes: Champion the Mission, Be a Host, Embrace the Adventure and Be a Cereal Entrepreneur. Candidates commonly report a recruiter call, a technical screen, and a final loop of coding or craft interviews plus one or two values interviews, often with people from outside the hiring team.

As candidates commonly report it; it varies by team, level and year. Last reviewed 18 October 2026.

Practise a mock interview in Airbnb's styleWarm up free on these questions

The interview process

  1. 1Recruiter call
  2. 2Technical or craft screen (for engineers, often a live coding interview)
  3. 3Final loop: coding, system design for experienced roles, and a past-project deep dive
  4. 4One or two core values interviews, often with someone from another team
  5. 5For some roles, a test, a recorded video or an event, as Airbnb's careers FAQ notes

What interviewers listen for

  • Champion the Mission
  • Be a Host
  • Embrace the Adventure
  • Be a Cereal Entrepreneur
  • Understanding of hosts and guests and the trust between them
  • Clean, working code and clear communication

Behavioral questions

  1. Tell me about a time you went out of your way to make someone feel welcome or supported at work.

    A good answer covers

    • Who it was and what they needed
    • What you did, specifically
    • The difference it made to them and to the team

  2. Tell me about a time you turned a bold idea into something real with limited resources.

    A good answer covers

    • The idea and why it seemed unlikely
    • How you got creative with little time, money or help
    • What you built and what happened next

  3. Tell me about a setback you bounced back from. What did it teach you?

    A good answer covers

    • What went wrong and how it felt, honestly
    • What you did to recover
    • How it changed the way you work or think

  4. Tell me about a time you had to build trust between two groups who wanted different things.

    A good answer covers

    • The two groups and what each wanted
    • How you understood both sides before proposing anything
    • The agreement you reached and how trust held up afterwards

Role and technical questions

  1. How would you design search for stays, so guests can filter by place, dates and price and still get results quickly?

    A good answer covers

    • Location search, then checking availability for the dates
    • Indexes and caching, and which filters are costly
    • Ranking results and keeping availability accurate

  2. How would you design a booking system that stops two guests reserving the same home for the same night?

    A good answer covers

    • Modelling availability by night for each listing
    • Locking or a database constraint, so only one booking wins
    • Handling payment failures, holds that expire, and hosts' calendars synced elsewhere

  3. How would you help guests and hosts trust each other before a first booking? Talk me through product and technical ideas.

    A good answer covers

    • What each side worries about
    • Ideas such as verification, reviews, clear rules and messaging
    • How you'd measure whether trust improved

  4. After a release, prices for stays in one city look wrong. How would you investigate?

    A good answer covers

    • Confirming the scope and comparing with prices before the release
    • Checking currency, taxes, fees and city-specific rules in the change
    • Rolling back if guests are affected, then fixing and adding a test

  5. How would you support many languages and currencies in one app?

    A good answer covers

    • Keeping text out of code, with translation files and right-to-left layouts
    • Storing money with its currency and converting only for display
    • Dates, number formats and testing in several locales

  6. Walk me through a project you're proud of: the problem, your design and what you'd change.

    A good answer covers

    • The problem and who it was for
    • Your design and one hard trade-off
    • What you'd change now

Why Airbnb? Fit and HR questions

  1. Why Airbnb? Tell me about a trip or stay, yours or someone else's, that shaped how you see the product.

    A good answer covers

    • A real, specific experience
    • What it showed you about guests, hosts or belonging
    • How it connects to the work you'd do

  2. Which Airbnb core value is closest to how you work, and when have you shown it?

    A good answer covers

    • One value, named once
    • A short, true story
    • Why that value matters to you

  3. What does belonging mean to you, at work or when you travel?

    A good answer covers

    • A personal, specific answer rather than a definition
    • A moment you felt you belonged, or didn't
    • How you help others feel it

Tips

  • Prepare true, personal stories for the core values interviews; candidates commonly describe them as conversations about who you are, not only your work.
  • Use the product as a guest and read how hosting works, so you can talk about both sides of the marketplace.
  • In coding rounds, aim for code that runs and talk through edge cases as you go.
  • Read your interview invitation carefully: Airbnb's careers FAQ says some roles involve a test, a video or an event.

Practise it out loud

A mock interview asks the way Airbnb's interviewers are known to, follows up on your answers and gives you a report. The warm-up is free, needs no account and checks five of these questions as you answer.

Practise a mock interview in Airbnb's styleWarm up free on these questions

About this guide

Written by Orbit from Airbnb's own public pages and what candidates commonly report. Orbit isn't affiliated with Airbnb. The questions are practice questions in the style of its interviews, not questions taken from them. Processes change, so check the job post and what your recruiter tells you.

Sources