trivago Data Scientist Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was well-conducted. However, the first interview felt quite subjective, depending on the recruiter's preferences. This is understandable given the large volume of applicants. It wasn't clear if a team member reviewed the recordings.

So, it begins with your CV. If they're keen, you'll have a video interview where they ask things like the difference between ML and stats, any fights you've had with colleagues, and your biggest accomplishments. After that, I got an assignment to build a model predicting if a customer leaves feedback. I had 3 days for this, and they liked my model, so I was invited to their Amsterdam office for an hour-long interview. Then, I got rejected because they can't hire PhDs for internships, which is weird since it was in the job ad. It felt like a total waste of my time, though I did learn to avoid this company. It was a really bad experience, and it's a shame they didn't explore options to hire me since I could have sorted my VISA.

I applied for the role and heard back from the recruiter about a month later. They mentioned Trivago sponsors visas and helps with relocation for international hires, and they seemed knowledgeable about Data Science. We chatted about my motivation and availability. Next, I was given a take-home challenge that included a CPC time series forecasting task and a multi-class classification task. For the classification part, I had to do feature engineering on two datasets to create a single dataset and also provide a system design for this use case after exploring the data. I had 15 days to complete this. They responded within 2-3 days after I submitted my solution, saying it was selected and I was invited for a technical interview. The technical interview was with the Hiring Manager and another Data Scientist. The questions focused on the use-case and Data Science concepts. They were professional and not intimidating. I heard back 3-4 days later that I passed and the final round was a culture fit interview with a Product Manager, Org Lead, and HRBP. After 7-9 days, a Data Science manager offered me the position via Zoom. Overall, the candidate experience was amazing, and the recruiter was responsive and helpful throughout. However, the offered salary was significantly lower than what I expected and what I was earning in India. For comparison, Booking.com offered 20K Euros more in fixed components, plus ESOPs and bonuses, in an interview I had a month prior. Given other opportunities in the EU market, Trivago's offer was impossible to accept. Trivago needs to improve their salaries to attract and retain talent.