Meta E4 Phone/Onsite Interview (Offer)
Summary
I successfully navigated the Meta E4 phone screen and onsite interviews, ultimately receiving an offer after a two-month intensive LeetCode preparation period. The whole process took about three months due to holiday delays.
Full Experience
I wanted to share my interview experience with Meta, where I ultimately received an E4 offer. The entire process took about two months of dedicated LeetCode grinding, extending to three months total due to holiday season delays. It's truly beneficial to start preparing early!
The interview process unfolded as follows:
Phone Screen:
During this round, I was given a problem where I had to merge a list of 'n' intervals and return the optimized result. There was also a follow-up question that involved 'k' interval lists.
Onsite:
- Coding Round 1: This was quite unique. The interviewer presented a problem involving a graph of friend relationships, and I was asked to optimize my solution.
- Coding Round 2: I encountered a variant of the LeetCode problem 'Simplify Path' and also a variant of 'Nested List Weight Sum'.
- Product Architecture: For this round, I was tasked with designing a ticket buying application, similar to Ticketmaster. I focused on API and Database Modeling rather than going into deep scalability discussions, as that was the interviewer's preference. I made sure to lead the conversation and document my design notes.
- Behavioral Round: The interviewer asked a number of classic behavioral questions. These included inquiries about projects I'm proud of, how I handle conflict resolution, difficulties I've faced with teammates, and my approach to project prioritization.
Interview Questions (5)
Given a list of 'n' intervals, I was asked to merge them and return the optimized result. There was also a follow-up question involving 'k' interval lists.
I was presented with a variant of the 'Simplify Path' LeetCode problem.
I worked on a variant of the 'Nested List Weight Sum' LeetCode problem.
I was tasked with designing a version of a ticket buying application, akin to Ticketmaster. The key focus was on API design and Database Modeling, rather than extensive scalability discussions.
I was asked several classic behavioral questions, including topics like projects I'm proud of, how I handle conflict resolution, challenges faced with teammates, and my strategies for project prioritization.
Preparation Tips
My preparation involved a rigorous two-month LeetCode grind. My advice is to prepare early. I found it helpful to maintain a spreadsheet of all the LeetCode questions I completed, along with their solutions, for easy review. I also recommend practicing questions specifically tagged for the target company, as they can combine various problem types. Moreover, having a strong grasp of writing clean, readable code is crucial.