Facebook | Android E4 | Remote | Reject

Technical Phone Screen

My interview process began with a technical phone screen. I was given two coding questions, with no Android-specific problems. I successfully resolved both problems within 40 minutes, which allowed me to proceed to the virtual onsite interview.

Virtual Onsite Interview

The virtual onsite consisted of four rounds: two coding interviews, one system design interview, and one behavioral interview.

1st Coding Round

In this round, I encountered two coding problems. I managed to resolve both questions in under 40 minutes. For the first problem, I achieved an O(n^2) solution, and for the second, an O(nlogn) solution.

2nd Coding Round

The second coding round also presented two coding questions. I resolved both of these within 40 minutes, delivering an O(n) solution for the first problem and an O(n^2) solution for the second.

Design Round

The design interview focused on designing the Instagram home screen. After clarifying the requirements, I discussed authentication with Facebook, how to handle a large volume of posts, the constraint of each post having only one image, liking/disliking functionality, displaying user profile photos, and critically, how the app would support an offline mode. My discussion covered RecyclerView optimizations, image caching strategies (including the underlying mechanics of libraries like Glide/Picasso), WorkManager, batching requests, and pagination. I was initially quite nervous about this round, but I felt I performed really well in the end.

Behavioral Round

This round was primarily a conversational interview. I was asked to share examples from my past experiences related to specific situations, such as receiving ambiguous requirements or working with colleagues I disliked. I believe I handled the initial part of this round effectively. Towards the end, I was given a coding question which I resolved pretty quickly with an O(n) solution, although I think I might have missed some edge cases, like empty spaces at the beginning of the input. However, the interviewer seemed content with my solution.