I founded an invitation on the IT community site of my country in my native language. However, all subsequent communication and my letter with my CV to Booking were in English.

The process took over a week after the recruiter sent me the coding assignment via a platform called HackerRank, with 48 hours to complete it. There were 1.5 hours to complete three tasks, similar to the first level on the platform (Data Structures, Algorithms, and others).

I performed well and was moved to the recruiter interview stage, then declined.

For the technical test, I remember one task.

You have an array of strings which describes rectangles with (A, B, C, D) values:

 A
___________
|         |
|         |

D | |B | | | | ------------ C

Implement a method to recognize three kinds of figures:

• Squares (each side equals to others, A = B = C = D)
• Rectangles (each side equals to the opposite, A = C, B = D)
• Other figures (A != B != C != D)

The output must be the three counters of figures, separated by a space.

Input data:

{ "36 30 36 30", "15 15 15 15", "46 96 90 100", "86 86 86 86", "100 200 100 200", "-100 200 -100 200" }

Output data:

2 2 2

Perhaps that was a bit of a joke that consumed some of my time, but the main thing I found was that the output data provided was incorrect. If we look at the input data and simply count the figures, we will have 2 squares, 3 rectangles, and 1 other figure.

However, I made a correct implementation which produced the output "2 3 1". The HackerRank platform did not recognize my answer as correct.

The second task I completed correctly, and HackerRank recognized it as fully completed. The third task I made mostly complete.

The recruiter answered me that I was confirmed for the next round, which would be a Phone Interview.

I had two days to prepare and made a list of questions (after searching on this site). All of them were on the interview:

1. What do you know about Booking.com? Do you know the business model of Booking.com? How does Booking get its revenue?
2. What are your motivations for applying?
3. Illustrate both your academic and working background.
4. What is your expectation of the position?
5. What can be improved in the Booking app and site?