Airbnb Software Engineer interview experience

I applied for a Staff Software Engineer role and then heard nothing for more than a month. When I finally got an email, it invited me to a CodeSignal technical interview. The interface looked polished and had practice exercises, but the editor felt limited compared with a VS Code-style workspace and lacked conveniences such as autocompletion.

The HackerRank-style assessment allowed 90 minutes and added requirements in stages. I built an in-memory database while keeping earlier tests passing: basic CRUD, then scanning and filtering, then TTL, and finally versioning. I kept my camera and microphone on, used one monitor, and could not use external resources such as AI assistants.

After what felt like a full workday of effort, I received a generic rejection the next morning without meaningful feedback. The effort required and minimal closure made the decision feel impersonal and frustrating.

Location: Brazil. Overall feedback: negative. Offer status: no offer.