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Growth · Software Engineer Interview Guide

How to Pass the TravelPerk Software Engineer Interview in 2026

The TravelPerk DNA (TL;DR)

TravelPerk values candidates who demonstrate strong problem-solving skills, customer obsession, and adaptability in a fast-paced, global environment. They look for collaborative individuals who align with their mission to simplify business travel.

The TravelPerk Interview Loop

Your onsite loop will typically consist of 5 rounds.

  1. 1

    Round 1

    Recruiter Screen
    Motivation, role fit, logistics.
  2. 2

    Round 2

    Coding Screen
    LeetCode-medium algorithmic problems under time pressure.
  3. 3

    Round 3

    System Design
    Distributed systems, trade-offs at scale, architecture under constraints.
  4. 4

    Round 4

    Onsite Coding
    LeetCode-hard, debugging, code clarity, edge cases.
  5. 5

    Round 5

    Behavioral / Leadership
    Past evidence of ownership, influence, resolving conflict.

The Danger Zone: Top Reasons Candidates Fail

Based on our database of TravelPerk interview outcomes, avoid these common traps:

  • Not designing for high availability and fault tolerance.
  • Not reflecting on the outcome or lessons learned.
  • Not taking ownership of their role in the conflict.
  • Presenting the disagreement as a personal conflict rather than a technical debate.

Test Yourself: Real TravelPerk Questions

Three real prompts pulled from our database.

Type · Conflict Resolution

Tell me about a time you had a significant disagreement with a colleague or manager. How did you handle it, and what was the resolution?

Type · Algorithmic

You are given a list of company travel policies, each with a maximum budget for flights, hotels, and car rentals. Write a function to check if a proposed trip itinerary exceeds any of these policy limits.

Type · System Design

Design a system to detect and flag potentially fraudulent bookings. Consider the types of data you would use and how you would process it to identify suspicious patterns.

+ many more questions, signals, and worked examples

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TravelPerk Interview Question Bank

A sample from our database, grouped by round. Sign up to see the full set.

9 of 19 questions shown

1

Recruiter Screen

1
  1. 1

    Type · Motivation

    Why are you interested in working at TravelPerk, and what specifically about our mission or product excites you as a software engineer?
2

Coding Screen

3
  1. 2

    Type · Algorithmic

    Given a list of flight bookings, each with a departure and arrival city and time, find the shortest layover time between any two consecutive flights for a given traveler. Assume flights are always in chronological order for a single traveler.
  2. 3

    Type · Algorithmic

    Implement a function to determine if a given string representing a user's search query for flights is valid. A valid query must contain at least a departure and arrival city, and optionally a date. Cities should be at least 3 characters long.
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
3

System Design

3
  1. 4

    Type · System Design

    Design a system to suggest optimal flight routes to users based on their preferences (e.g., shortest duration, fewest stops, lowest price) and real-time flight data. Consider how to handle updates to flight schedules and pricing.
  2. 5

    Type · System Design

    Design a notification service for TravelPerk that alerts users about flight changes (delays, cancellations, gate changes). How would you ensure timely and reliable delivery of these notifications?
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
4

Onsite Coding

3
  1. 6

    Type · Debugging

    Here is a Python function that calculates the total cost of a trip, including flights and hotels. It's producing incorrect results for certain inputs. Find the bug and fix it. [Provide a code snippet with a subtle bug, e.g., incorrect float comparison, off-by-one error in a loop, or mishandling of optional fields].
  2. 7

    Type · Algorithmic

    Implement a function to find the cheapest flight path between two cities, given a list of available flights with their prices and layovers. You can take multiple flights. This is similar to Dijkstra's algorithm but with a focus on cost.
  3. + 1 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)
5

Behavioral / Leadership

9
  1. 8

    Type · Conflict Resolution

    Tell me about a time you had a significant disagreement with an engineer or designer about a product decision. How did you approach it, and what was the outcome?
  2. 9

    Type · Ownership

    Tell me about a time you took initiative to solve a problem that wasn't explicitly assigned to you. What was the situation, and what was the result?
  3. + 7 more questions in this round (sign up to unlock)

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Interview tracks at TravelPerk

How TravelPerk's DNA translates across functions. Pick your role.

SWEs are evaluated on technical depth, system design for scalable microservices, and clean code practices. Expect coding challenges, architecture discussions for high-volume transactions, and collaboration on complex features within their travel tech stack.

Conflict Resolution

Tell me about a time you had a significant disagreement with a colleague or manager. How did you handle it, and what was the resolution?

Algorithmic

You are given a list of company travel policies, each with a maximum budget for flights, hotels, and car rentals. Write a function to check if a proposed trip itinerary exceeds any of these policy limits.

+ 1 more

Unlock the Software Engineer grading rubric for TravelPerk

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Compare TravelPerk with other tech interviews

Same DNA, different bar. Browse the closest companies in our database and see how their loops differ.

Practice TravelPerk interviews end-to-end

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