System design

Airbnb System Design Questions

Every system design problem candidates reported at Airbnb between September 2025 and September 2026, most-asked first. Each one links to a full solution. Tick them off as you go.

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7problems
11candidate reports
3asked more than once
13topics
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Companies

Meta26Microsoft24Amazon23OpenAI22Google20TikTok16Salesforce15Anthropic15Uber12LinkedIn11Apple11JPMorgan11Atlassian11Snowflake9Netflix9Oracle9Goldman Sachs8Rippling8Databricks7Walmart7Airbnb7Capital One7NVIDIA6Pinterest6Roblox6Flipkart4Bloomberg4Visa4Adobe4Anduril1

Topics

Design a group chat system
3 reports · last seen Feb 2026Real-timeMessagingDistributed Systems
Advanced+5▶ Mock
Design a Reliable Scheduler for Payment Jobs
2 reports · last seen Aug 2026SchedulingDistributed SystemsEvent Driven
Advanced+7▶ Mock
Design a Rental Marketplace Backend
2 reports · last seen Mar 2026Distributed SystemsPaymentsBooking System
Beginner+3▶ Mock
Design an A/B Testing Platform
1 report · last seen Apr 2026AnalyticsData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Design a Distributed Key-Value Store
1 report · last seen Jan 2026DatabasesDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Design a fast host listing metrics page
1 report · last seen Dec 2025AnalyticsDatabasesCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Design a user activity query system
1 report · last seen Dec 2025AnalyticsData PipelinesStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock

Duplicate reports of the same problem are merged and counted.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What system design questions does Airbnb ask?

Candidates reported 7 distinct system design problems at Airbnb between September 2025 and September 2026, including Design a group chat system, Design a Reliable Scheduler for Payment Jobs, Design a Rental Marketplace Backend.

How to prepare for Airbnb system design interview?

Start with the Airbnb problems reported most often, work through each full solution, then practice explaining a design end to end under time pressure in a mock interview.

What is the difference between HLD and LLD at Airbnb?

HLD (High-Level Design) focuses on system architecture, scalability, and component interactions. LLD (Low-Level Design) dives into class diagrams, API contracts, and database schemas. Airbnb tests both.