Booking.com Data Engineer II interview questions

Interview process (Mid Data Engineer — Marketing): • Take-home (HackerRank): 1-hour Python + SQL (offline). • Recruiter screen. • Live coding (Python): standard DS/algos + a bit of SQL. • System design (data): Hackerrank whiteboard • Engineering Manager: last step. My experience: • Rejected at system design with feedback that felt nitpicky for mid-level. • Panelists couldn’t say which team I’d join; ~5 min left for my questions. • After a month, I still didn’t know the actual responsibilities or team setup, although they did say I’d probably end up just writing spark jobs. • Feedback centered on tool choices (e.g., Flink vs Spark despite the prompt asking for low latency; Redis vs Cassandra when budget “wasn’t important”; dislike of Kafka Streams). It came across as grading stack alignment rather than the reasoning and trade-offs. • For a mid role, details like exact stack are usually team decisions, not pass/fail items. • Communication was rough: interviewers often mumbled or poorly formulated questions, then marked me for not replying fast enough or for asking them to repeat/rephrase, even when I answered correctly once the question was clear. • Contradictory design feedback: when I added concrete details, they called it “too complex”; when kept simpler, it felt like they’d say “not experienced enough” expectations were unclear for a mid role. Takeaway: Felt like “pick our exact stack or you’re out.” Given the time investment, unclear team/charter, and inconsistent questioning, I wouldn’t go through it again.