Agoda | Tech Lead Data Engineer | Bangkok | November 2024 [Result: Awaiting Feedback]

Status: Experienced Data Engineer with 6+ years in data engineering and system design, currently exploring senior roles.

Position: Tech Lead Data Engineer
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Date: November 5, 2024

Interview Process and Format

System Design Round (1 hour):
• Focus: The interview emphasized system design for a rental search ranking model, similar to Agoda’s approach. (Reference Article on Agoda’s System Design)
https://medium.com/towardsdev/system-design-rental-search-ranking-booking-model-for-agoda-4211fb980bc4

•	Topics Covered:
•	Designing scalable data models for search ranking and recommendation
•	Addressing data freshness, partitioning, and caching for real-time queries
•	Handling scalability with distributed data pipelines and ML-based ranking

Behavioral and Technical Discussions (1.5 hours):
• Behavioral: Discussed my experiences in leadership, mentoring, and managing cross-functional projects.
• Technical: Data engineering optimization, focusing on ETL frameworks, SQL, and data pipeline efficiencies.

Onsite (4 rounds):
1. System Design (1.5 hours): Further exploration into architectural decisions, focusing on latency and data consistency.
2. Algorithmic Problem Solving (1 hour): Algorithmic questions emphasizing efficient data processing.
3. Data Engineering Practical (1 hour): Scenario on data cleaning, transformation, and aggregation.
4. Team Fit and Leadership (45 minutes): Discussion on alignment with Agoda’s culture, collaboration, and team leadership.

Result

•	Outcome: Awaiting Feedback
•	Summary: A challenging and rewarding process, with a strong focus on practical system design aligned with Agoda’s data-driven approach.