Expedia Group Data Engineer Interview Guide

The Expedia Group data engineer loop, round by round: what each stage tests, example questions with the guidance interviewers actually score, the mistakes that sink strong candidates, and how to prepare.

Last updated: Proudly published by: Jeff Wahl

What the Expedia Group loop tests: domains and difficulty

Our prediction of the question mix by domain and difficulty for this company's data engineer loop, from live listings and interview reports.

By domain
SQL
57%
8
Python
43%
6
By difficulty
Easy
50%
7
Medium
29%
4
Hard
21%
3

The domain and difficulty mix we predict for a Expedia Group data engineer loop, across 14 problems. It updates as more Expedia Group data lands.

Updated 14 predicted Expedia Group problems

7 real Expedia Group interview questions

Reported by candidates from real loops, tagged by domain, round, level, and year. Expand for what the round is scoring.

SQLL5 · 2025
Get a list of all customers, their total number of trips booked, and the average rating
Onsite · sql
+

Schema: customer(customer_id, first_name, last_name, email), booking(booking_id, customer_id, hotel_id, booking_date, stars). JOIN customer to booking on customer_id, GROUP BY customer fields, use COUNT(*) for trips and AVG(stars) for rating, ORDER BY total trips descending.

PythonL4 · 2024
Generate unique identifiers for IoT devices by appending numbers on conflicts
Online assessment
+

Given an array of device names like ["tv","fridge","microwave","tv","microwave","tv","fridge"], return ["tv","fridge","microwave","tv1","microwave1","tv2","fridge1"]. Track seen names with a dictionary counting occurrences. On conflict, append the current count. From Round 1 coding assessment (100 minutes, 3 problems).

PythonL4 · 2024
Given an input string, write a function that returns the Run Length Encoded string
Online assessment
+

Example: input "wwwwaaadexxxxxx" returns "w4a3d1e1x6". Iterate through the string tracking consecutive character runs. For each run, append the character followed by its count. From Round 1 coding assessment (100 minutes, 3 problems) at Expedia Group Data Engineer interview.

PythonL4 · 2022
a factorial question
Phone screen · screen sql
+
PythonL4 · 2022
top k frequent elements
Phone screen · screen sql
+
PythonL5 · 2017
Local minima in trees
Phone screen · screen sql
+
PythonL5 · 2017
sorting million numbers
Phone screen · screen sql
+

How candidates rate the Expedia Group loop

How hard candidates rated the loop and how they felt, summarized across the reports below.

How hard candidates rated it
Easy
0%
Medium
67%
Hard
33%

6 rated reports

How candidates felt
Positive
50%
Neutral
50%
Negative
0%

2 rated Expedia Group reports

Try a Expedia Group-style SQL round

Find every user active on 3 or more CONSECUTIVE days. This gaps-and-islands shape shows up in nearly every DE SQL round. Edit the query and run it against the seed data.

/* Users active on 3+ consecutive days. */
/* Hint: date minus a per-user ROW_NUMBER is constant within a streak. */
WITH streaks AS (
SELECT
user_id,
activity_date,
activity_date - CAST(
(ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
PARTITION BY user_id
ORDER BY activity_date
))
AS INT
) AS grp
FROM user_sessions
)
SELECT
user_id
FROM streaks
GROUP BY user_id, grp
HAVING COUNT(*) >= 3

Practice the Expedia Group loop

The problems our model expects in this company's interview, grouped by round. Work the shapes that come up, not the ones that read well on a list.

Expedia Group is hiring data engineers now

The roles behind this loop. Prep against the levels and locations they are actually filling.

Expedia Group compensation and culture

The numbers, tech stack, and team structure live on the company overview.

Compare Expedia Group with other data engineering employers

How the role, pay, and loop stack up against peer companies.

02 / Why practice

Prepare at Expedia Group interview difficulty

  1. 01

    Reading a solution is not the same as writing one

    Every engineer who has frozen on a query they had read a dozen times knows the gap. The only preparation that closes it is producing the answer yourself, under time, before the interview does it for you

  2. 02

    76% of hiring managers reject on the coding task, not the resume

    From HackerRank's 2024 Developer Skills Report. Candidates who look strong on paper still fail the live screen if they haven't done timed, executable practice

  3. 03

    5 problem shapes cover 80% of data engineer loops

    Dedup, sessionization, top-N-per-group, slowly-changing dimensions, partition tricks. Writing the shapes by hand turns the unfamiliar into pattern recognition

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