TripAdvisor Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated Apr 27, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 22 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 22 ratings
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| 1–10 of 22 TripAdvisor Interviews | Sort by |
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Apr 27, 2012
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5.0
Very Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed Jul 2010 in Newton, MA (took 3 weeks)
This company has put me through the worst hiring process I ever experienced. The process dragged on for weeks. They did a phone screen and two rounds of face to face. Throughout the whole process I was forced to solve brainteasers and white-board problems for EVERY person I spoke with. Furthermore, some puzzles had no solution (according to the interviewer), others had nothing to do with software development.
Throughout the entire process I was constantly reminded what a great company they were, how many brilliant people worked there, and what a huge favor they were doing me by letting my talentless self interview there.
After going through 7 or 8 interviewers over the course of two sessions, I got an offer, which was far lower than what I asked for. When I politely declined, their head of technical recruiting (not going to name him but there is only one) proceeded to insult me and try to strong-arm me into taking their offer - incredibly unprofessional. Needless to say I still declined. That was 2010.
I have recently talked to them again - a face-to-face with a hiring manager. While he was fully aware of the offer they have given me in the past, he still proceeded to give me a whiteboard problem and after I solved it, proceeded to tell me that I would have to go through the whole interview process from scratch again and that my added experience didn't matter and they will still only consider me for the same position as they had 2 years earlier. After that, I had a brief chat with the same technical recruiter, who insulted me the last time and who apparently still works there. He proceeded to project the same smug attitude and I left with a bad taste in my mouth. Needless to say, I will not have anything to do with this company ever again. Your mileage may vary, but I did not get an impression that they have a good idea about how to attract quality engineers and I would not want to work there.
Interview Questions
I.e. you have coins with denominations of 1c, 7c, 13c,19c and you have to express $2.12 with the least number of coins.
There is always a 1c coin but the other 3 are arbitrary.
This was also a whiteboard problem.
Reason for Declining
Low salary offer, arrogance of the people I dealt with, smug attitude of their technical recruiter. I have since heard from several recruiters I know personally, that nobody really wants to work with this company.
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Mar 22, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2012 in Watertown, MA (took a day)
1st round is phone interview. 2nd round is group interview
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Jan 3, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 (took 2 weeks)
I met with the representative at the career fair. I was contacted the next week for a phone interview. The phone interview consisted of critical thinking puzzles, technical questions and writing code. The interviewer was very neutral and did not offer much help when I got stuck or acknowledged a correct answer. I had to write a function that reversed a string.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Dec 3, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in Boston, MA (took a day)
I didn't particularly enjoy the interview. I think the interviewer was French and I sort of had difficulty understanding his question. He put some Java code in front, and I was required to solve basic linear search problem. However, I only understood the problem in the last 3 mins. Would've been much better if the phone connection was better, and if I had a better interviewer.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Oct 17, 2011
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took a day)
Met the TripAdvisor staff at a career fair and handed my resume for them to look at. After a week I got a one-on-one interview on campus. Went over the content of my resume with the interviewer and then we dove into some coding exercises. The coding exercise was simple and basic.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Oct 14, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took 4+ weeks)
First you get to be called by phone, and expected to write code online, and explain it in the process. Usual software developer interview. Then, if they want to meet you, they schedule a meeting at the headquarters after a about a month later from your first interview. Relaxed environment, not different from the others. They expect you to know all the aspects of software engineering, from design to test.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Oct 13, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took a day)
few technical questions first:
Asked about hash table, difference between equality method and equals operator, asked about syncronization.
Gave sample code and had to create a method to get something, asked about time complexity, if my code was good or not, asked about different methods.
Asked how to create hash map in java...
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Oct 7, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took a day)
Talked with a company representative at a career fair. I gave him my resume and took his business card. About a week later I got an email asking if I would be interested in interviewing with the company. I accepted and we scheduled an interview for the following week. The interviewer was the same person I talked to at the career fair.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I applied In-Person and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Oct 1, 2011
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5.0
Very Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Boston, MA (took 2 weeks)
Applied online for the Scalable Web Engineering program. Got a reply from a senior software engineer fast asking for interview the next day.
First phone interview
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The first interviewer was in general very nice and polite
They interview you by phone and ask you to be by a computer so you can type in a shared online whiteboard.
Tell 1-2 min about yourself (that was the only question related to my CV in the entire interview process).
What is the difference between array and linked list?
What is a hash table?
What if you had the worst hash-function ever - what is the complexity of lookup?
How many dates in the 1900's in the form mm/DD/yy are palindromes?
Write a function to reverse a string in the most memory efficent way? (you can code in any language you like)
Follow up questions to the provided solution:
- What happens if you can an odd length string
- What is immutable and mutable strings in Python
I then got a second phone interview, again asking for an interview the next day again.
Second phone interview
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The interview had a heavy french accent which made it difficult to understand his questions and explanations. However, was in general nice and polite.
In the second interview there was also no questions to my CV. It consisted of only one programming task, more difficult than the previous one.
The programming task was like this: Travel alerts are displayed on the TripAdvisor website for a given region (e.g. Japan could show that there is earth quake etc.). Implement the findBestTravelAlert method (interview pasted some template code in the online whiteboard).
Once code was done. There was some follow-up questions like:
- What is the complexity of the code you have written
- How can you optimize? how can you optimize it even further.
After a week later I got an email saying they would not continue the interview process. In general the interview process was very fast.
If you're not fresh out of university, you should definitely brush up your algorithms and data structures before applying for the job. Once they ask for an interview it will always be the next day, so you have very little time to prepare.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Posted Sep 27, 2011
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 (took 2+ weeks)
The hiring process was great. Met at the career fair. I have my initial interview on campus. Then I have another phone interview the next week. Both of them are technical questions, e.g. data structure etc.
I had the third one, which is also a phone interview, but require using google doc to write code.
The experiences were great for the first two interviews, but then the third one is very serious and strict. I was asked to implement DFS by using Java. It wasn't hard, and I finished the code. Since we usually get nervous while talking on the phone, so I made couple mistakes. The last interview wasn't encouraging and didn't go well. Overall, it was a great experience indeed, but I would prepare more for next time to be not nervous.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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