Meta E4 Interview Experience
Summary
I recently interviewed with Meta for an E4 Product role, navigating through a phone screen and multiple onsite rounds, where I successfully tackled various coding, system design, and behavioral challenges.
Full Experience
My Meta E4 Interview Experience
I recently interviewed with Meta for their Product role at the E4 level and wanted to share my experience across the phone screen and onsite rounds.
Before the phone interview, I completed two assessments:
- A coding assessment with 4 stages
- A work-style assessment
Phone Screen
- Count number of 1s in a given subarray in a large array of 1s and 0s. I was given indices for the start and end of the subarray. I started with a simple linear approach, then optimized it to a prefix-sum solution:
prefix[end] - prefix[start - 1]. Follow-ups included questions on handling digits 0–9 instead of binary, and how to handle cases likestart > end. - Find Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree. I implemented the standard recursive LCA algorithm and walked through examples. I missed one edge case where
pandqhave the same value, and needed a small hint for the scenario where both references point to the same node.
Overall Phone Screen Feedback was positive: strong coding, clear communication, and fast implementation. Improvements were suggested in clarifying questions and edge-case coverage.
Onsite Rounds
Round 1
- Find first 1 in a sorted binary matrix. I solved this problem cleanly.
- Trapping Rain Water. I solved this problem cleanly.
Round 2 (Design Round)
I was asked to design a concert ticket booking service for a small scale (one venue, many concerts). I discussed requirements, user flows, API design, data model, and bottlenecks. I drove the conversation end-to-end, providing detailed but clear explanations, and moved quickly through the design choices. I also pushed back when needed to clarify assumptions.
Round 3
- Valid Palindrome II.
- Valid Word Abbreviation.
I solved both of these problems without any issues.
Round 4 (Behavioral)
This was a standard behavioral round with questions focused on handling ambiguity, conflict resolution, and using data to drive decisions. It was a straightforward conversation centered around my past experiences, demonstrating ownership, and highlighting collaborative efforts.
Interview Questions (8)
Given a large array of 1s and 0s, and indices for the start and end of a subarray, count the number of 1s within that subarray. Follow-ups included handling digits 0-9 instead of binary, and cases like start > end.
Find the Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in a binary tree.
Find the position of the first '1' in a matrix where each row is sorted and contains only 0s and 1s.
Given n non-negative integers representing an elevation map where the width of each bar is 1, compute how much water it can trap after raining.
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.
Given a string s, return true if the s can be palindrome after deleting at most one character from it.
Given a word and an abbreviation, check if the word matches the abbreviation. For example, 'internationalization' can be abbreviated as 'i12n' or 'i5s4n'.
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.