I interviewed at Booking.com (Amsterdam) in Aug 2017
Interview
The whole process has taken nearly four weeks from July to August.
The first round is technical test for some basic statistic and machine learning knowledge, 10 question during 30 minutes.
The second round is HR interview about your background and motivation.
The third round is a telephone interview during 45 minutes with 2 data scientists, we have discussed my project and a business case in Booking.com.
Last round is on-site interview, 4 hours and 3 interviews. In fact, except the second interview, the others were really nice.
During the second interview, I met two "data scientists", one of them is not real data scientist but more business. He was very rude and interrupted me and his colleague many many times. And the question from him was really strange (build a machine learning model without any history data), and during the exchange with him, I find he didn't understand some basic concepts in data science domain.
The other people I had met were pretty nice except him. Booking said they have 140 data scientists, but after the discussion with them, I found part of them is BI (I have no prejudice for BI), they analyse the data and make the decision, which is not correspond to my understanding for Data Scientist
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
difference between l1 and l2; what is gradient decent; how to choose parameter
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Booking.com
Interview
Interview process was solid and relevant. There were three rounds: one technical, one business case directly tied to the role, and one focused on company alignment. Most rounds included case studies, which tested problem solving approach along with technical knowledge. The conversations were clear and to the point. Main focus was on how you approach problems and whether that fits with the company values. Reading about the values and culture beforehand is important
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Follow up questions from case study, questions about experimentation
30 mins phone screen with recruiter, next round will be with 2 data scientists and discuss on a business case. Seems like they did have some opinion on that question, it was not like a open discussion.
I talked with manager and recruiter. Some questions about personality and some about technical skills. Some were more difficult then others. The people were quitte nice. But a lot of competition