Airbnb Staff Site Reliability Engineer Interview Preparation Guide

Airbnb's Staff SRE interview process is a rigorous 8-round evaluation spanning 4-6 weeks designed to assess technical depth in distributed systems, infrastructure expertise, operational excellence, leadership capability, and cultural alignment. The process begins with a recruiter screening, followed by a technical phone screen, then transitions to a 6-round onsite engineering loop covering coding challenges, general systems design, SRE-specific infrastructure design, code review, and behavioral assessment. For Staff level (12+ years experience), the bar is exceptionally high, requiring not just technical mastery but demonstrated ability to lead complex initiatives, mentor senior engineers, make strategic architectural decisions, and drive meaningful reliability improvements at Airbnb's scale.