Expedia's Interview Process (2026)

Blog / Expedia's Interview Process (2026)

The Expedia Group software engineer interview process typically runs across 4 to 5 stages and generally takes between 4 and 8 weeks from application to offer. Here is what most candidates report going through:

Recruiter Screen: Usually a 15 to 30 minute call where a recruiter covers your background, interest in Expedia, and general role expectations.
Strength-Based Assessment (Cappfinity): An automated situational judgment test, around 45 to 60 minutes, that focuses on behavioral traits like curiosity, inclusion, and agility rather than technical ability. This typically acts as an early filter before any coding is involved.
Online Assessment (HackerRank): A 60 to 90 minute technical test on HackerRank, usually featuring 2 coding problems at Easy to Medium difficulty along with several multiple-choice questions covering topics like OOP, databases, and operating systems.
Technical Phone Screen: A live 60 minute interview with an engineer that generally includes a resume or project deep dive, a coding problem, and a short Q&A. Expect to discuss Big-O complexity and defend your implementation choices.
Final Rounds (Virtual Onsite): Usually 3 to 4 back-to-back interviews covering coding and data structures, system design, and a behavioral or hiring manager conversation. Some 2026 candidates also report a scenario-based incident investigation round.

To make the most of your prep time, focus on these core areas that Expedia consistently tests across its interview stages:

Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA): LeetCode-style coding problems at Easy to Medium difficulty, covering arrays, strings, linked lists, prefix sums, and more.
System Design (High-Level Design): Scalable architecture questions, often travel-domain specific, covering URL shorteners, booking systems, and cloud infrastructure.
Low-Level Design (Object-Oriented Design): Object-oriented design questions that are more common for SDE I and new grad candidates.
Behavioral: STAR-format questions in the hiring manager round focused on curiosity, conflict resolution, and learning from failure.

1. Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA)Coding questions at Expedia generally sit at the Easy to Medium range, with problems drawn from arrays, strings, linked lists, sliding window, and prefix sums. The HackerRank OA and the technical phone screen both involve coding, so you will want consistent practice across all of these topics. Start by working through our top 100 DSA questions to build a solid baseline.Sliding window problems come up frequently. Expect questions similar to Minimum Swaps to Group All 1s Together (Minimum Swaps to Group All 1's Together) and sliding window variants on arrays. Brush up on sliding window patterns as a priority.String problems are also common across both the OA and live rounds. Valid Parentheses, Valid Anagram, and String Compression have all been reported by candidates. Palindrome variants and anagram problems are worth knowing well.Prefix sum questions show up consistently in 2025 and 2026 OA reports, with the "Stay Positive" problem appearing multiple times. Subarray Sum Equals K, Find Pivot Index, and Subarray Sums Divisible by K are all solid practice problems to reinforce that pattern. Also review Two Sum and Trapping Rain Water for good measure.For linked lists, make sure you are comfortable with reversal and merge operations. Copy List with Random Pointer and Merge Sorted Array are representative of the difficulty level you will face. Interviewers pay attention to clean implementation and your ability to explain time and space complexity clearly.

2. System Design (High-Level Design)Expedia's system design questions often have a travel or booking angle, which makes them slightly different from generic big tech prompts. Expect questions like designing a real-time flight booking system, a pricing and availability service, or a payment processing system. That said, classic prompts like a URL shortener or a notification service are still fair game.Cloud and infrastructure knowledge comes up too. Candidates report being asked about Kubernetes vs. ECS trade-offs, AWS components like S3, Lambda, and DynamoDB, and deployment strategies like Blue-Green. Even if you are interviewing for a general backend role, having a working knowledge of AWS is worth the time.Some 2026 candidates report an incident investigation scenario, where you are given a situation like "latency spikes after deployment" and asked to walk through your debugging process using logs, metrics, and rollback decisions. This tests production-level thinking, not just architecture.Practice with our High-Level Design case studies to get comfortable with these kinds of open-ended prompts. You can also use our System Design Whiteboard to sketch out architectures for practice before your interview.

3. Low-Level Design (Object-Oriented Design)For SDE I and new grad candidates, the system design round often leans toward object-oriented or low-level design rather than full distributed systems. You might be asked to model a booking system or design a class hierarchy for a travel-related feature.Focus on OOP principles like encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism, and be ready to discuss design patterns like Factory or Strategy if they are relevant to your design. Low-Level Design practice is a good place to sharpen these skills before the interview.The MCQ section of the HackerRank OA also includes OOP theory questions, so make sure your fundamentals are solid alongside the design practice.

4. BehavioralThe hiring manager round carries real weight at Expedia, and the company specifically looks for evidence of curiosity, agility, and a willingness to learn from failure. Plan to have 3 to 4 strong stories ready that cover those themes.Expedia uses the STAR format for behavioral questions, so structure your answers around situation, task, action, and result. Common question themes include conflict resolution, times you disagreed with a decision, and projects that did not go as planned.The Cappfinity strengths assessment earlier in the process is also behavioral in nature, so this is not just a concern for the final round. Check out the Behavioral Playbook to get your stories ready before you even hit the HackerRank stage.

ConclusionExpedia rewards candidates who think clearly, communicate their reasoning well, and show genuine curiosity. Start with the DSA fundamentals, layer in system design and behavioral prep, and make sure you take the Cappfinity assessment seriously since it comes early and acts as a real filter. Follow the Expedia Interview Roadmap for a structured, stage-by-stage plan to get you from first application to offer.

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