Airbnb Product Designer interviews, decoded.

The whole thing took about six weeks. The recruiter was nice and answered all my questions. First, we had a call, then they looked at my portfolio, and I got a design challenge. A senior designer reviewed it and we chatted on the phone for an hour. The last step was an in-person interview where I presented a case study and then had one-on-one chats.

Got an email from a recruiter and set up our first call. Had that initial call with the recruiter and a design manager. Then I had a 1:1 call with a design manager. After that, I got a design exercise to do in about a week. I spent 15 hours on it and emailed a presentation. I got a rejection email about a week after I sent it.

I went through a really long and drawn-out interview process, and then got ghosted. I sent two polite follow-ups over three weeks. The recruiter always said they'd get back to me soon, but never did. It feels like Airbnb doesn't respect the time and effort candidates put into interviewing with them.