Booking.com Software Engineer interview experience

The coding piece was a LeetCode-style medium problem, and I could tell they were looking for clear reasoning rather than just getting to the right answer.

Then I went into system design. The prompt stayed in Booking’s domain, and I worked through a reservation-style high-level design with users and admins, thinking about the components and how the system should behave. It was engaging, but I didn’t fully land the requirements—especially how to separate function vs. non-functional constraints—and a few mistakes added up. By the time I was finished with the system design interview, I wasn’t