Meta E4 SWE Experience - US [Offer / Accepted]
Summary
I successfully interviewed for an E4 SWE role at Meta in the US, securing an offer after completing a phone screen and a 5-round onsite, which included coding, system design, and behavioral questions.
Full Experience
I was reached out to by a recruiter a few months back to apply for E4. We had a call to review my resume, then I was moved to the phone screen stage. I elected for a month to prepare for the phone screen. I was already prepping using Neetcode 150 for about two months prior at this point.
Phone Screen Two questions:
- palindrome/anagram grouping with follow ups ( can't quite remember now )
- [med] variant of i18n / valid abbreviation - input is two Strings, check if it's a valid abbreviation. both inputs can have numbers.
I got feedback within a few days that I was accepted for onsite. I requested a few more weeks to prepare. My prep split at this point was ~40% LC (felt pretty cracked in LC at this point), 55% system design (super weak here), and rest in behavioral (1-2 day of prep).
I had 5 rounds - 2 system design (1 practice), 2 coding, 1 behavioral
Onsite
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Round 1 [Coding] [med] given an integer, find the smallest integer you can make by swapping at most 2 digits [hard] exp add ops
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Round 2 [Coding] [med] - insert into circular LL [med] diameter n-ary tree
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Round 3 [Behavioral] standard - conflicts, prioritization, sell yourself on biggest project
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Round 4 [System design] heavy hitters / Top K. Follow up - what if instantaneous results weren't in scope. how would you change the design
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Round 5 [System design] Design ticket booking system, emphasis on atomic operations, etc.
Result About 2 weeks after, I was given the green light that I was moved to team matching.
Interview Questions (9)
Group palindromes and anagrams, with follow-up questions.
Given two strings, check if one is a valid abbreviation of the other. Both input strings can contain numbers.
Given an integer, find the smallest integer you can make by swapping at most 2 digits.
Problem related to expression add operators.
Insert a node into a circular linked list.
Find the diameter of an N-ary tree.
Standard behavioral questions covering topics like handling conflicts, prioritization, and describing your biggest project.
Design a system for identifying heavy hitters or Top K elements. Follow-up question: How would the design change if instantaneous results were not in scope?
Design a ticket booking system with an emphasis on atomic operations.
Preparation Tips
Reflection
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If you're doing Meta, tagged tagged tagged. Get to at the VERY least 75 problems last 30d/3mo/6mo, and know the top 50 by heart. I was at a state where given the title, I could immediately code the most optimal solution and talk through it end to end. I got to about 80 where I could do end to end easily and didn't feel comfortable tbh- I got super lucky with my q's. I'd go to at minimum 100 to feel at least somewhat okay.
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Communication is key - you can breeze through impl but if you're a mime then you won't pass. There were some slip ups I had, where I fumbled a bit on answering follow-ups, etc. but I think my communication was quite good during the impl which helped a lot at least.
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Don't skip behavioral - I felt pretty okay talking through behavioral as I have pretty good stories from my experience. Bucketize your stories based on all the big behavioral (conflict, priority, etc). I'd practice at least 3-5 days worth.
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System design - Hello interview + Jordan has no life. In hindsight, I would've paid for HI, but I was too ego lol. But it's not necessary imo. Biggest thing is, being able to talk about tradeoffs and don't pigeonhole immediately on the 'most optimal' solution just because some material you watched said that it's the most optimal. You have to be fluid here.
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Check out LeetCode Discuss for variants + Minmers YT channel.
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I'm 2/2 on FAANG interviews, but I will definitely chalk it up to luck of interviewers being SUPER nice and collaborative, as well as questions not being super cracked / ones I've seen. This whole thing is a game, and you may get unlucky, and that's just the heart of the cards. Don't be discouraged or think you can't do it because you failed once. .
I will answer as many questions as I'm able to.
Hope this helps / motivates someone. Iโm a complete average joe, not a CS prodigy from birth and donโt live and breathe LeetCode, but just worked super hard. I estimate about 300-400 hrs total studied. It was tough doing it along with work + life - definitely began to burn out towards the onsite. But with a bit of luck, I believe anyone could do it.
Good luck to everyone prepping!!! YOU GOT IT!