What is a Data Engineer?

At Airbnb, the Data Engineer role is central to the company’s mission of creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere. Data is not just a byproduct of the platform; it is the engine that drives decision-making, product innovation, and the personalized experiences of millions of hosts and guests. As a Data Engineer here, you are not simply moving data from point A to point B. You are architecting the foundation that enables the entire organization—from Product Managers to Data Scientists—to understand user behavior, optimize search rankings, and ensure trust and safety across the platform.

You will work on high-scale challenges that involve processing petabytes of data. Airbnb is historically known for its significant contributions to the open-source data community (most notably creating Apache Airflow and Apache Superset). Consequently, the bar for engineering excellence is high. You will build robust, scalable data pipelines, design efficient data models, and maintain the "source of truth" datasets (often referred to as "Minerva" metrics within the company) that power critical business dashboards and machine learning models.

This role requires a blend of strong software engineering principles and deep data intuition. You will sit at the intersection of infrastructure and analytics, ensuring that data is reliable, timely, and accessible. Whether you are optimizing batch processing jobs or designing real-time streaming architectures, your work directly impacts how Airbnb scales its global marketplace.

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for an engineering role at Airbnb requires a strategic approach. Unlike general software engineering roles that focus heavily on complex algorithms, the Data Engineer loop balances coding proficiency with practical data manipulation and system design. You need to demonstrate that you can build systems that are not only functional but also maintainable and scalable.

Your interviewers will evaluate you based on the following key criteria:

Technical Proficiency – You must demonstrate fluency in SQL and a procedural language (typically Python or Java). Interviewers look for clean, production-quality code. It is not enough to get the right answer; your code should handle edge cases, error logging, and be optimized for performance.

Data Modeling & Architecture – This is a critical evaluation area. You will be assessed on your ability to design schemas (Star vs. Snowflake), optimize for read/write patterns, and handle data partitioning. You must understand how to structure data to answer specific business questions efficiently.

Core Values Alignment – Airbnb places immense weight on culture. You will be evaluated on how well you embody values like "Be a Host" and "Champion the Mission." This is not a "soft" check; it is a rigorous part of the process where you must demonstrate empathy, collaboration, and a positive approach to ambiguity.

Interview Process Overview

The interview process at Airbnb is structured to be thorough and transparent. It typically begins with a recruiter screening to discuss your background and interest in the role. If you pass this stage, you will move to a technical phone screen. This screen usually involves a coding challenge—often focused on SQL and light algorithmic scripting—conducted via a shared code editor. The goal here is to verify your fundamental technical skills before moving to the comprehensive onsite loop.

The onsite stage (currently virtual) is an immersive experience consisting of multiple rounds. You should expect a mix of "General Coding" rounds (algorithmic problems), "Data Coding" rounds (practical data manipulation), and a dedicated "Experience" or "Architecture" round where you discuss past projects and system design. Uniquely, Airbnb includes a specific "Core Values" interview, which is separate from technical assessments and carries significant weight in the final hiring decision.

The process is rigorous but designed to be collaborative. Interviewers want to see how you think and how you collaborate on problems. The pace is generally steady, and you can expect the entire loop—from application to offer decision—to take several weeks depending on scheduling.

This timeline illustrates the typical flow from your initial application to the final decision. Use this visual to plan your study schedule; ensure you allocate time specifically for the "Values" interview preparation, as it appears late in the process but is a common stumbling block for otherwise technically strong candidates.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Based on candidate reports and internal standards, the Data Engineer interview focuses on three to four primary pillars. You must demonstrate competence in all of them to receive an offer.

Data Modeling and Schema Design

This is often the defining round for Data Engineers. You will be given a vague business scenario (e.g., "Design the data tables for a hotel booking system") and asked to architect the solution.

Be ready to go over:

• Dimensional Modeling – Deep understanding of Facts, Dimensions, and Star Schemas.
• Partitioning & Bucketing – Strategies for optimizing storage and query performance on large datasets (e.g., partitioning by date or region).
• Schema Evolution – How to handle changes in data structure over time without breaking downstream consumers.
• Scaling – How your design holds up when data volume increases by 10x or 100x.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design a database schema to track Airbnb experiences and bookings. How would you handle price changes over time?"
• "How would you partition a table with billions of rows to ensure fast retrieval for regional analysis?"
• "Critique this existing schema. Where are the bottlenecks?"

SQL and Data Manipulation

Expect to write complex SQL queries from scratch. These questions go beyond simple SELECT * statements. You will need to solve analytical problems using SQL.

Be ready to go over:

• Window Functions – Proficient use of RANK(), LEAD(), LAG(), and moving averages.
• Complex Joins – Handling self-joins, cross-joins, and optimizing join logic.
• Aggregation & Filtering – Advanced grouping and filtering techniques (HAVING, CASE WHEN).

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Given a table of user logins, write a query to find users who have logged in on 3 consecutive days."
• "Calculate the week-over-week growth rate of bookings per city."

Algorithmic Coding (The "Laptop" or "General Coding" Round)

While less intense than a backend SWE interview, you still need to write clean code in Python or Java. The focus is often on data structures and practical manipulation rather than dynamic programming or graph theory.

Be ready to go over:

• Data Structures – Arrays, HashMaps (Dictionaries), Sets, and Lists.
• String Manipulation – Parsing logs, cleaning messy text data.
• File I/O – Reading a CSV or JSON file and processing it line-by-line.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Write a function to parse a messy log file and extract error counts per module."
• "Find the median of a stream of numbers."
• "Implement a simple rate limiter."

The word cloud above highlights the most frequently occurring concepts in Airbnb Data Engineer interviews. Notice the prominence of Modeling, SQL, Partitioning, and Scaling. This indicates that while coding is required, your ability to structure and manage data at scale is the primary differentiator.

Key Responsibilities

As a Data Engineer at Airbnb, your daily work revolves around ensuring data is a first-class citizen. You will design, build, and maintain the batch and real-time data pipelines that feed into the company’s massive data warehouse (built on Hive, Spark, and Iceberg). A significant portion of your time will be spent in Airflow, orchestrating complex workflows that dependency-manage thousands of tasks.

You will collaborate closely with Data Scientists to productionize their models and with Product Managers to define the metrics that matter. This often involves taking a loose set of requirements—such as "we need to track host response times better"—and translating that into a robust engineering solution, from the logging event upstream to the final aggregate table downstream.

Additionally, you will focus on Data Quality and Governance. You won't just move data; you will implement checks (using tools like Great Expectations or internal frameworks) to ensure data accuracy. You will likely work on initiatives to improve data discovery, reduce latency, and optimize compute costs, ensuring that Airbnb's data infrastructure remains sustainable as it grows.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

To succeed in the interview and the role, you need a specific mix of technical hard skills and collaborative soft skills.

• Must-have Technical Skills:

  • Advanced SQL: You must be able to write high-performance SQL and understand query execution plans.
  • Programming: Strong proficiency in Python or Java (Python is heavily used for Airflow and data scripting).
  • Big Data Frameworks: Experience with distributed systems like Spark, Hive, or Presto/Trino.
  • Data Modeling: Solid grasp of Kimball methodologies and modern data warehouse design.

• Nice-to-have Skills:

  • Airflow Experience: Since Airbnb created Airflow, deep knowledge here is a massive advantage.
  • Streaming Data: Experience with Kafka, Flink, or Spark Streaming.
  • Cloud Infrastructure: Familiarity with AWS (S3, EC2, EMR) or similar cloud environments.

• Soft Skills & Culture:

  • Communication: Ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Host Mentality: A willingness to help others, mentor junior engineers, and contribute to the team's success rather than just your own.

Common Interview Questions

The following questions are representative of what candidates have encountered. They are categorized to help you structure your practice sessions.

Data Modeling & System Design

This category tests your ability to think at a high level about data architecture.

• "Design a data warehouse solution for a ride-sharing app (similar to Uber/Lyft). What tables do you need?"
• "How would you model the data for Airbnb's search ranking system? How do you handle historical changes in listing attributes?"
• "We have a table with 100 billion rows that is queried frequently by date and city. How do you optimize it?"
• "Explain the difference between a Star Schema and a Snowflake Schema. When would you use one over the other?"

SQL & Analytical Querying

These questions test your raw ability to extract insights from data.

• "Write a query to find the top 3 hosts in each city based on the number of positive reviews."
• "Given a table of bookings and a table of cancellations, calculate the cancellation rate for each month."
• "Identify users who booked the same listing more than once within a 30-day window."
• "How would you de-duplicate a table that has no primary key?"

Coding & Algorithms

These questions ensure you can write functional scripts to process data.

• "Given a list of strings, group them by anagrams."
• "Write a program to read a CSV file of transactions and sum the total revenue per category."
• "Implement a function to flatten a nested JSON object."
• "Find the first non-repeating character in a stream of characters."

These questions are based on real interview experiences from candidates who interviewed at this company. You can practice answering them interactively on Dataford to better prepare for your interview.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the coding portion compared to a standard Software Engineer role? The algorithmic complexity is generally lower than for a backend SWE role (think "Medium" LeetCode rather than "Hard"). However, the bar for code cleanliness, testing, and handling edge cases remains very high. You are expected to write production-ready code, not just pseudo-code.

Q: What is the "Core Values" interview, and can I fail it? Yes, you can fail the loop based on this interview alone, even if your technical rounds were perfect. This round assesses your alignment with Airbnb's mission and culture. Prepare stories that demonstrate how you handle conflict, how you champion users, and how you foster belonging.

Q: Does Airbnb allow remote work for Data Engineers? Yes, many recent job postings and interview experiences indicate that Airbnb hires for remote positions within the US and other specific regions. However, expectations for collaboration and availability during core hours remain standard.

Q: How long does it take to hear back after the onsite? Candidates report varying timelines, but generally, you should expect feedback within 1 to 2 weeks. If you haven't heard back after a week, it is acceptable to follow up politely with your recruiter.

Q: Will I be asked about Airflow specifically? While you might not be asked to write Airflow DAGs from memory, understanding the concepts of DAGs, operators, and task dependencies is highly beneficial. If you have Airflow experience, highlight it; if not, understand the general concepts of workflow orchestration.

Other General Tips

Master the "Why Airbnb?" Narrative: You will be asked why you want to work here. Generic answers like "it's a cool company" won't cut it. Connect your personal story or professional goals to Airbnb's mission of belonging. Mention specific product features or engineering challenges (like the scale of their data mesh) that excite you.

Don't Skimp on SQL Optimization: It is not enough to write a query that returns the right result. Interviewers will ask, "How would this query perform on a dataset of 10 billion rows?" Be ready to discuss EXPLAIN plans, partition pruning, and skew handling.

Practice "Talking While Coding": Airbnb interviewers value communication. When you are stuck or making a decision (e.g., "I'm choosing a HashMap here because lookup is O(1)"), say it out loud. Silence is your enemy in a virtual interview.

Know Your Resume Deeply: In the Experience/Architecture round, you will be grilled on the decisions you made in past projects. Why did you choose Kafka over Kinesis? Why did you model the data that way? Be prepared to defend your technical choices.

Summary & Next Steps

Becoming a Data Engineer at Airbnb is a significant career milestone. You will be joining a team that is world-renowned for its data culture and engineering maturity. The role offers the chance to work on systems that impact millions of lives, ensuring that travelers find their perfect stay and hosts can build successful businesses.

To succeed, focus your preparation on SQL fluency, dimensional data modeling, and practical scripting. Do not treat the behavioral interview as an afterthought; at Airbnb, culture fit is a technical requirement. Approach your study sessions with consistency—practice designing schemas for everyday apps and writing clean, executable Python code for data tasks.

The salary data above provides a general range for this role. Note that Airbnb's compensation package typically includes a strong equity component (RSUs), which can be significant. Offers vary based on location (e.g., San Francisco vs. Remote) and level (Senior vs. Staff), so view these numbers as a baseline for negotiation.

You have the skills to tackle this challenge. By preparing methodically and understanding the specific demands of the Airbnb interview loop, you can walk into your onsite with confidence. Good luck!