I recently interviewed at Airbnb. I was asked a range of culture fit questions such as “would you list your house on the site” and the like. One question that I found interesting was “what are your thoughts on open borders”. I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this question at Airbnb and for those of you at Airbnb, what is the company looking for with a question like this?
Uh...what? I’m sure there’s a slew of people who are fine with this, but sentiments towards open borders sounds like a political affiliation question. That’s a no-go. How does that have anything to do with how you write code or do technical design?
Go with hyper liberal answer. Berlin Wall came down, west Germany was not economically or culturally destroyed. It makes me hopeful that all borders can eventually go away.
Airbnb places much more emphases on the cultural interview vs other companies. make sure to BS heavy on that portion.
If you don't get the job, can you sue for discrimination on the basis of political affiliation?
If the questions feel uncomfortable, just imagine what it’s like to work there. Run.
Really interesting. How were the technical interview questions?
It was for a Frontend position, so it was mostly building js widgets.
That seems illegal...
I didn't get that specific question but if you review Airbnb's values or "pillars" (which they probably sent to you as preparation) it very much emphasizes hospitality and "belonging anywhere" so I bet the open border question is very much probing your alignment to those values (and less so on immigration and gov policy). In an interview one should probably and intentionally steer from political controversies and talk about the idealized vision portion of this.