I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Tripadvisor (Boston, MA) in Oct 2012
Interview
Recruiter got in touch via linkedin. Talk with the HR on the phone who went on and on about their benefits and kept mentioning that they were being acquired by TripAdvisor, then another phone screen with an engineer who asked OOP, string manipulation and basic CS level questions. Both calls were couple of days apart which went fine. Went for an in person interview a week later. It would be an understatement to say that it was one of the worst experiences of my professional life.
Talked to an senior engineer about databases, joins, queries etc which went good. Then there was another hour long interview with an unwelcoming engineer who asked me to code a tree question which also went without a hitch (except for the attitude of the engineer which was off putting but I was unaffected).
After this came the worst part, an interview with a panel of 2 engineers. My god, they were so rude right from the start. When you call someone in for an interview, it is assumed by the candidate that the interviewee have reviewed the resume (at least seen it once). These guys start talking in a condescending way about my resume (snickering, laughing, commenting in hush tones), my approach to the problems (atoi, strtol implementations in C). They had problems with how 80% the programming world would implement these functions.
Both the guys were probably late 20's and had absolutely no training in interviewing whatsoever. After we were done, they just left without saying anything (A "bye" at least?). Like this was just a way for them to get off of work or something.
After this frustrating ordeal, I just went through with the last technical interview for the heck of it, with a senior and more seemingly down to earth engineer. discussed and implemented a graph problem.
Then had the final chat with the recruiter and left that hell hole some people bear the misfortune of calling "work".
In all, it was an awful awful experience and I wish I never replied to the recruiters messages in the first place so that this whole terrible process would have been avoided.
The company seems to be loaded with snobbish and condescending engineers who have no clue whatsoever how to deal with new people. I can't even imagine the kind of culture is propagated within this company. Maybe the glassdoor reviews say more than I could ever. It is so funny that they seem to have a customer representative reply to negative glassdoor messages in hopes of pacifying their image. It would be better to hire good and understanding people rather than college frat jerks.
After the interview, I felt really traumatized and depressed, atleast for a while.
Now to think about it after a couple of years later, I would say that experience made me a better person and taught me "what not to do" while interviewing.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Nothing that they asked was too difficult. Basic CS questions.
I applied online. I interviewed at Tripadvisor in Feb 2026
Interview
Good, although, sometimes struggling in providing you information about when interview will be leaving you wondering. Technical interview was good, I went into in uncertain as I wasn't sure about if I could solve a challenge. Recruiter was very nice and informative as well. Gutted to not progress onto next stages but they layout whole process for you and provide with you with feedback even if you fail the technical interview.
I hope to re-apply soon when I become more confident with approaching technical assessments cause these do not correlate with your day to day duties as SE.
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. As our company continues to grow, we are appreciative of comments that highlight our strengths as well as areas we can improve upon.
A few rounds of technical interviews and hr was done . A technical test was sent to me and an online live coding session was also set . The overall process was good
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. As our company continues to grow, we are appreciative of employee comments that highlight our strengths as well as areas we can improve upon.
Application
I interviewed at Tripadvisor (Portugal)
Interview
Looks like a demanding process. I didn’t get through the initial stage interview due to not having great answers for the screening questions so I can’t tell much on what comes later
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. As our company continues to grow, we are appreciative of employee comments that highlight our strengths as well as areas we can improve upon.