The interview was a three-step process:

A phone call with the recruiter, an online code test via HackerRank with two of their developers, and an on-site interview at their HQ in Amsterdam.

This consisted of three separate interviews:

• One with their recruiter that explained their relocation package and working at Booking, etc.
• Two one-hour interviews with their front-end team.

1. Recruiter Phone Call: This was fairly standard, mainly a discussion about your experience and a few questions regarding A/B testing.

2. HackerRank Technical Interview: This consisted of introductions, talking about your experience, and a programming question. In my case, it was to create a form and a generic function to validate it. The two developers were responsive and happy to answer any questions.

3. On-Site Interview in Amsterdam: After passing the technical interview online, you are invited to visit their office in Amsterdam, for which they cover your flight and accommodation, which is really nice. Usually, you get a couple of days to explore Amsterdam, and then spend 3-4 hours in their office for the interviews and lunch with a member of the team.

   3.1. Recruiter Interview: This was more of a discussion where they aimed to explain what it is like to work at Booking, how they handle relocation, and various benefits.

   3.2. First Technical Interview: This was with two of their developers. There was a slight language barrier as they were not native English speakers, and I do not speak Dutch. You are required to write code on paper (which you are told before flying to Amsterdam). The question was to create a generic tooltip for various DOM elements: how you would tell this function which particular node should have a tooltip, specify its content, and implement it via JavaScript/jQuery. I'm fairly certain this is where I fluffed up, as I overcomplicated the solution quite a bit, so keep things simple.

   3.3. Second Technical Interview: This was with two different developers and consisted of a few questions. First, you are presented with a list of tasks and asked to prioritize them and explain your reasoning. Then, the technical question was to create a dropdown navigation component. The last question was to generate a stock 'widget' where stocks are retrieved from an API in a format of your choice, which you had to poll and update the UI with the latest values.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience, though I unfortunately did not get an offer. Everyone I spoke with was very nice, and it gave off a very positive vibe. So, if you are considering it, I would strongly recommend it.

A/B testing

Create an HTML form and a generic validation function.

Create a tooltip component that can display a tooltip for N nodes on a page.

Prioritize tasks in order of importance.

Create a dropdown navigation component in HTML.