553 questions · from 172 interviews · 79 asked more than once
Meta interview questions
Every question candidates reported from their Meta interviews, most frequently asked first. Each links to the write-up it came from, so you can see the round and how it went.
Meta coding and DSA questions
- 01
Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses
I was asked to solve LeetCode 1249: Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses.
Medium · Asked 16 times · From Meta interview
- 02
Valid Word Abbreviation
Given a word and an abbreviation, check if the word matches the abbreviation. For example, 'internationalization' can be abbreviated as 'i12n' or 'i5s4n'.
Medium · Asked 11 times · From Meta E4 Interview Experience
- 03
Binary Tree Vertical Order Traversal
Given the root of a binary tree, return the vertical order traversal of its nodes' values. (i.e., from top to bottom, column by column).
Hard · Asked 11 times · From Meta | E5 (Prod) Onsite | U.S. | Rejected
- 04
Buildings With an Ocean View
You are given an integer array heights of size n representing the heights of n buildings located from left to right. Return an array of the indices of the buildings that have an ocean view. A building has an ocean view if all the buildings to its right are…
Medium · Asked 10 times · From Meta | E5 (Prod) Onsite | U.S. | Rejected
- 05
Nested List Weight Sum
Given a nested list of integers, return the sum of all integers in the list weighted by their depth. Each element is either an integer or a list -- whose elements may also be integers or other lists.
Medium · Asked 8 times · From Meta E6/E5 Experience
- 06
Vertical Order Traversal of a Binary Tree
Given the root of a binary tree, return the vertical order traversal of its nodes' values (i.e., from top to bottom, column by column).
Hard · Asked 8 times · From Meta E5 | Pass
- 07
LRU Cache
Implement an LRU (Least Recently Used) cache with get and put operations that evicts the least recently used item when capacity is exceeded.
Medium · Asked 7 times · From Meta US swe e4(full loop)
- 08
Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree
Find the Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in a binary tree.
Medium · Asked 7 times · From Meta E4 Interview Experience
- 09
Valid Palindrome II
Given a string s , return true if the s can be palindrome after deleting at most one character from it.
Easy · Asked 7 times · From Meta E4 Interview Experience
- 10
Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree III
I was asked to solve LeetCode 1650: Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree III. The interviewer specifically wanted to understand why the optimal solution, which uses no extra space, works.
Medium · Asked 7 times · From Meta interview
- 11
Kth Largest Element in an Array
Please refer to the provided LeetCode link for the full problem description.
Medium · Asked 7 times · From [Meta E4] Technical Screen Exp
- 12
Range Sum of BST
The second question I faced was Range Sum of BST . I almost blanked on this one but thankfully managed to pull myself together. The code I wrote was a bit clunky, but I checked it later, and it passed on LeetCode. I did a dry run of a provided example,…
Easy · Asked 7 times · From Meta Phone Screen
- 13
Diameter of Binary Tree
The problem asked for the Diameter of Binary Tree.
Medium · Asked 7 times · From Meta E5 Full Loop
- 14
Binary Tree Right Side View
Given a binary tree, return the values of the nodes visible when viewed from the right side of the tree.
Medium · Asked 6 times · From Meta Onsite E5 Infra
- 15
Sum Root to Leaf Numbers
Given a root of a binary tree containing digits from 0-9 only, where each root-to-leaf path represents a number. Return the total sum of all root-to-leaf numbers. A leaf is a node with no children.
Medium · Asked 6 times · From Meta E4 Interview Experince Bangalore
- 16
Basic Calculator II
I walked through both stack-based and optimized single-pass solutions, and implemented the optimized version without a stack for clarity.
Medium · Asked 6 times · From Meta E5 what are my chances ?
- 17
K Closest Points to Origin
Given an array of points and an integer K, return the K closest points to the origin (0, 0).
Medium · Asked 5 times · From Meta E6 ML-SWE / Downlevel
- 18
Random Pick with Weight
You are given an array of positive integers w, where w[i] describes the weight of the ith index. Implement the function pickIndex() which randomly picks an index in proportion to its weight.
Medium · Asked 5 times · From Meta E5 || London
- 19
Shortest Path in Binary Matrix
Given an n x n binary matrix grid, return the length of the shortest clear path in the matrix. A clear path is a path from the top-left cell (0, 0) to the bottom-right cell (n - 1, n - 1) such that all visited cells are 0 and all adjacent cells in the path…
Medium · Asked 5 times · From Meta E5 || London
- 20
Minimum Window Substring
Given two strings s and t of lengths m and n respectively, return the minimum window substring of s such that every character in t (including duplicates) is included in the window. If there is no such substring, return the empty string "" .
Hard · Asked 5 times · From Meta | E5 (Prod) Onsite | U.S. | Rejected
- 21
Group Shifted Strings
The task is to group strings into lists where each group contains strings that can be obtained from one another by shifting letters. Full description is available via the provided LeetCode link.
Asked 5 times · From E5 Meta Phone screen
- 22
Word Ladder
Given two words, beginWord and endWord , and a dictionary wordList , return the length of the shortest transformation sequence from beginWord to endWord , such that: Only one letter can be changed at a time. Each transformed word must exist in the wordList .…
Hard · Asked 5 times · From Meta E4 | Onsite | Reject
- 23
Simplify Path
The task was to simplify a given Unix-style absolute path. A link to the LeetCode problem Simplify Path was provided.
Medium · Asked 4 times · From Meta | SE | Technical phone screening | March 2026
- 24
Next Permutation
Implement the next permutation algorithm, which rearranges numbers into the lexicographically next greater permutation of numbers. If such an arrangement is not possible, it must rearrange it to the lowest possible order (i.e., sorted in ascending order). The…
Medium · Asked 4 times · From Meta E4 Interview Experince Bangalore
- 25
Random Pick with Weight (Variant)
Implement pickIndex method to randomly pick an index based on given weights. The problem was a variant of the standard 'Random Pick with Weight' problem.
Medium · Asked 4 times · From Meta E5(Infra)- Reject
343 more in the Meta write-ups.
Meta system design questions
- 01
Design LeetCode
Design a system similar to Leetcode.
Asked 3 times · From Meta interview experience: E4/E5
- 02
Design a Mobile File Downloader Library
Design a library that, given a URL, downloads files from external sources. The interviewer provided a function signature: func($url, ?= parameters) . I was asked to focus on the client-side, including JavaScript concepts like promises and threads, and…
Asked 3 times · From Meta E4 | Onsite | Reject
- 03
Design Netflix
Design a system similar to Netflix.
Asked 2 times · From Meta | E5 (Prod) Onsite | U.S. | Rejected
- 04
Top K Heavy Hitters
Design a system to find the Top K most frequent items (heavy hitters) from a stream of data.
Hard · Asked 2 times · From Meta E5 | Pass
- 05
Design a Game Leaderboard
The system design question involved designing a leaderboard for a single game. I initially considered a top-k video solution, but the interviewer clarified the scope was for one game, indicating that my initial approach was overly complex. I had to scale back…
Asked 2 times · From Meta Interview to Offer For SWE E4
- 06
Mobile File Downloader Library Design
I was tasked with designing a client-side library capable of downloading files from a given URL. The interviewer guided me to focus on client-side aspects, particularly JavaScript concepts like promises and threading models. The problem was later identified…
Hard · Asked 2 times · From Meta E4 | Interview experience | Reject
- 07
Ticketmaster Concert Ticket Purchase System Design
Design a system that can handle the purchase of up to 20,000 tickets for a high‑profile concert (e.g., Taylor Swift), ensuring scalability, strong consistency, and low latency during peak traffic.
- 08
Ad Aggregator Service Design
Design an ad aggregator service. I was asked how to scale it with the number of servers and database estimations.
- 09
System Design: LeetCode Live Leaderboard
Design a system for a live leaderboard, similar to LeetCode's, which tracks user scores and ranks in real-time. Consider aspects like data ingestion, real-time updates, query performance, scalability, consistency, and fault tolerance.
Hard · From Meta E5 US Rejected
- 10
Task Management System Implementation
Implement a task management system with multiple levels of functionality. The first level involves basic operations like adding, updating, and retrieving tasks. The second level adds search and list functionalities with specific sorting rules. The third level…
Hard · From Meta Online Assessment CodeSignal
- 11
Design Instagram Feed Service
Design a system for Instagram that handles posts, images, and friends. The interviewer asked about consistent hashing and strategies for handling high read traffic for the feed service.
From Meta Onsite E5 Infra
- 12
Design Instagram Video Feed
Design an end-to-end system for Instagram's video feed.
Hard · From Meta E6 ML-SWE / Downlevel
- 13
Design Facebook Feed Ranking (Second Stage)
Design the feed ranking system for Facebook, with a specific focus on the second-stage ranker.
Hard · From Meta E6 ML-SWE / Downlevel
- 14
Design a Food Delivery Website
I was asked to design a food delivery website. The discussion involved deep dives into geospatial indexing for location-based restaurant searches, utilizing Elasticsearch for word-based search functionalities, and implementing cron jobs for managing…
Hard · From Meta E4 Interview Experince Bangalore
- 15
Design an Online Food Delivery App
Design an online food delivery application. The design should cover various aspects including clarifications, high-level architecture, identifying key entities, defining services, designing APIs, considering functional and non-functional requirements,…
From My Full Meta Interview Experience (Sept–Oct 2025) — Rejected
- 16
Design a Concert Ticket Booking Service
Design a concert ticket booking service, specifically for a small scale scenario with one venue and multiple concerts. The discussion covered requirements, user flows, API design, data modeling, and identifying bottlenecks.
Hard · From Meta E4 Interview Experience
- 17
Design Online Chess Game with Leaderboard
Design an online 1 vs 1 chess game along with a leaderboard system.
From Meta interview
- 18
Design WhatsApp (API calls only)
Design a system similar to WhatsApp, focusing on using API calls for communication rather than websockets.
Hard · From Meta E5 || London
- 19
Design Privacy Settings for Facebook App
Design privacy level settings for a particular user for the Facebook app, covering options like 'Me', 'Public', 'Friends', and 'Friends of Friends'.
Hard · From Meta onsite experience, blr india
- 20
Design a Price Tracking and Alerting System
Design a system capable of tracking product prices and sending alerts when prices change or meet certain criteria.
Hard · From Meta E6/E5 Experience
- 21
Design a Create and Search System for Posts
Design a system that allows users to create posts and search for existing posts efficiently.
Hard · From Meta E6/E5 Experience
- 22
Design LeetCode for 50K Users
I led the conversation end-to-end, clearly defining functional and non-functional requirements, APIs, and the architecture (API Gateway → Queue → Worker → Sandbox → Storage). We also discussed async job handling, container orchestration, and fault recovery.
- 23
Design Ad Recommendation System
I was asked to design a system that can provide relevant ad recommendations to users. This involved discussing various components like data collection, user profiling, ad selection algorithms, ranking, serving infrastructure, and considerations for…
Hard · From Meta Onsite
- 24
System Troubleshooting Metrics
If all the standard metrics (I/O, disk, CPU, etc.) are already provided, what additional information would you gather from the system for a site that frequently goes down?
- 25
Netflix API Design
In the Product Design round, I was tasked with designing the API for Netflix, which involved considering system architecture, scalability, and various functional requirements.
From META full loop
62 more in the Meta write-ups.
Meta behavioural and HR questions
- 01
Behavioral Questions
Project I’m proud of Dealing with ambiguity Growth mindset A boss I had issues with (or something similar) Felt fine here.
Asked 5 times · From Meta E5 interview experience (Rejected)
- 02
Conflict Resolution
Behavioral question focused on how I resolve conflicts, followed by several follow-up questions.
Asked 4 times · From Meta E6/E5 Experience
- 03
Behavioral Interview
This round involved standard behavioral questions, with a focus on topics such as handling ambiguity, resolving conflicts, and using data to inform decisions. The conversation revolved around past experiences, ownership, and collaboration.
Asked 3 times · From Meta E4 Interview Experience
- 04
Proudest Project
I was asked to discuss my proudest project that I had worked on.
Asked 2 times · From META full loop
- 05
Difficult Working Relationship
Can you tell me about the most difficult working relationship that you’ve had?
Asked 2 times · From Meta E5 Full Loop
- 06
Why Meta?
Standard behavioral question: Why are you interested in working at Meta?
Asked 2 times · From Meta Phone Screen + On site Loop | Full Experience | Rejected
- 07
Behavioral: Major Disagreement with Cross‑Functional Partner
The interviewer asked me about a time I had a major disagreement with a cross‑functional partner. They followed up with probing questions such as: "Did you actually deliver the impact the Product Manager committed to?" "If you split the feature, who took the…
From I failed the Meta behavioral round recently after acing all the technical rounds
- 08
Behavioral Questions on Projects
The interviewer asked two behavioral questions focused on my projects.
- 09
Behavioral Questions (STAR Method)
Answer standard behavioral questions using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method. These typically cover topics like conflict resolution, teamwork, leadership, failure, success, and handling challenges, assessing communication, problem-solving, and…
From Meta E5 US Rejected
- 10
Resolving Conflict with Manager/Higher-ups
How do you resolve conflict with your manager or higher-ups?
- 11
Convincing Team for Initiatives
How do you convince others in your team to complete a task or initiative you are leading?
- 12
Project You Are Proud Of
Tell me about a project you are proud of.
- 13
Dealing with Difficult Co-worker
How do you deal with a difficult co-worker?
- 14
Changing Direction Mid-execution
Tell me about an instance where you had to change direction mid-execution on a project.
- 15
- 16
Learning from Production Bug/Mistake
Tell me about a time you pushed a bug to production or something went wrong because of you. What did you learn from that experience?
- 17
General Behavioral Questions
A session with 7-8 behavioral questions covering topics such as scope, impact, and conflict resolution.
- 18
Facing Pushback
I had to describe a situation where I faced pushback and how I addressed it.
From META full loop
- 19
Approaching Unknown Technical Problems
I was asked about my approach when encountering unknown technical problems.
From META full loop
- 20
Meta Leadership Principles
Behavioral questions centered around Meta's specific Leadership Principles, including targeted follow-ups.
From Meta E5 | Pass
- 21
- 22
Result Achieved
Tell me about a result you achieved for your team that you are most proud of.
From Meta E5 Full Loop
- 23
Faced Pushback on Project Approach
Can you tell me about a time where you faced pushback regarding your approach on a project?
From Meta E5 Full Loop
- 24
Act Quickly Without Clear Idea
Can you tell me about a time where you needed to act quickly on something but didn’t have a clear idea of how to proceed?
From Meta E5 Full Loop
- 25
Significant Setback and Reprioritization
Can you tell me about a time where you faced a significant setback that forced you to re-prioritize your work?
From Meta E5 Full Loop
66 more in the Meta write-ups.
Meta other questions
- 01
Minimum Add to Make Parentheses Valid
Given a string containing only parentheses, find the minimum number of additions required to make the string valid.
Medium · Asked 2 times · From Meta E6 London - Software Engineer (Product) - Full Loop
- 02
Subset of Words with Maximum Characters
Given a list of words, find a subset that uses as many characters as possible without repeating any letter. The solution should use DFS and pass all unit tests.
From Meta Onsite E5 Infra
- 03
Subtree of Another Tree
Given two root nodes of binary trees, determine if the first tree is a subtree of the second tree.
From Meta E6 London - Software Engineer (Product) - Full Loop
- 04
Closest Binary Search Tree Value
Given a binary search tree and a target value, find the value in the tree that is closest to the target.
From Meta E6 London - Software Engineer (Product) - Full Loop
- 05
PyTorch Single Layer Network: Forward and Backward Pass
For a single layer network, give a high level description of forward() and backward() methods in PyTorch.
- 06
Operating Systems: Memory, Processes, Threads, VFS
Standard OS questions around memory management, processes and thread management, and VFS.
- 07
i18n (Internationalization)
This question likely involved concepts related to internationalization (i18n), potentially covering system design aspects, API considerations, or implementation details for supporting multiple languages and regions within a software product. Given it was a…
Meta interview questions FAQ
What questions are asked in Meta interviews?
Candidates reported 553 distinct questions across 172 Meta interviews. 368 coding and DSA questions, 87 system design questions, 91 behavioural and HR questions, 7 other questions.
Which Meta interview questions are asked most often?
The most repeated are "Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses" (16 times), "Valid Word Abbreviation" (11 times), "Binary Tree Vertical Order Traversal" (11 times), "Buildings With an Ocean View" (10 times), "Nested List Weight Sum" (8 times).
How difficult are Meta interview questions?
Of the questions candidates rated, 11% were easy, 61% medium and 27% hard.