Meta E5 interview experience (Rejected)
- Posted
- 8 Jul 2025
Summary
I recently went through the full Meta interview loop for an E5 role, which included a screening round, two coding interviews, a product architecture system design round, and a behavioral interview. Despite performing well on some technical aspects, I was ultimately rejected with feedback to strengthen technical skills across the board.
How it went
Hey everyone,
I recently went through the full Meta interview loop and got rejected in the end, wanted to share my experience for anyone preparing, especially if you’re grinding LeetCode from scratch like I did.
Screening:
LC408 — Valid Word Abbreviation (with a follow-up: “What if there are two abbreviations over one word?”)
LC528 — Random Pick with Weight
Onsite / Full Loop:
Product Architecture:
I got a Dropbox-style system design. Went well, similar to the classic hello-interview Dropbox question.
Coding Interview 1:
LC227 — Basic Calculator II: I knew the optimal solution and explained it, but got stuck validating my code during the interview. The interviewer helped a bit. I missed an edge case in an if but fixed it immediately.
LC670 — Maximum Swap: Said the optimal approach, coded it with a few minor bugs but nothing major, I validated & fixed on the go. I used a map to store digit indices and looped from 9→0 to find swaps. The interviewer pushed me to optimize further. I think he wanted an early exit once no bigger digit exists. Eventually did it, went fine.
Coding Interview 2:
LC88 — Merge Two Sorted Arrays: Explained optimal, wrote code. The interviewer asked “did you miss anything?” in a confusing way — it threw me off, I added unnecessary code, then removed it when I realized. Overall okay.
LC138 — Copy List with Random Pointer: Said the 2-pass hash map approach. The interviewer pushed me to optimize. I didn’t understand at first, but he wanted the in-place single-pass version where you interleave new nodes into the original list. Eventually got it.
Behavioral:
Project I’m proud of
Dealing with ambiguity
Growth mindset
A boss I had issues with (or something similar)
Felt fine here.
Product Architecture (final):
Surprised me — it was about a catalog with items and images. There’s an external blackbox to validate items aren’t weapons/illegal. I gave a high-level API design, explained image uploads with presigned URLs, but didn’t reach non-functionals due to time.
Result:
Rejected. No detailed feedback — just “strengthen technical skills across the board.”
Questions asked (9)
- 01
Valid Word Abbreviation
Data Structures & Algorithms
LC408 — Valid Word Abbreviation (with a follow-up: “What if there are two abbreviations over one word?”)
- 02
Random Pick with Weight
Data Structures & Algorithms
LC528 — Random Pick with Weight
- 03
Dropbox-style System Design
System Design
I got a Dropbox-style system design. Went well, similar to the classic hello-interview Dropbox question.
- 04
Basic Calculator II
Data Structures & Algorithms
LC227 — Basic Calculator II
- 05
Maximum Swap
Data Structures & Algorithms
LC670 — Maximum Swap
- 06
Merge Two Sorted Arrays
Data Structures & Algorithms
LC88 — Merge Two Sorted Arrays
- 07
Copy List with Random Pointer
Data Structures & Algorithms
LC138 — Copy List with Random Pointer
- 08
Behavioral Questions
Behavioral
Project I’m proud of
Dealing with ambiguity
Growth mindset
A boss I had issues with (or something similar)
Felt fine here. - 09
Catalog System Design with External Validation
System Design
Surprised me — it was about a catalog with items and images. There’s an external blackbox to validate items aren’t weapons/illegal. I gave a high-level API design, explained image uploads with presigned URLs, but didn’t reach non-functionals due to time.
How they prepared
What I learned:
Studying 1.5 months from scratch works — but you NEED to push for edge-case handling & optimizations.
ChatGPT helps a lot, but doesn’t always push for the top-level optimal version interviewers expect. Same with YouTube (NeetCode is great for base solutions but maybe not for deeper optimizations).
System design: Don’t expect only standard designs.
Coding: It’s not just about solving — it’s about clean code, validating on the fly, and actively searching for better space/time trade-offs, even if the base solution “works.”
My prep guide:
💻 DSA:
I did NeetCode 150 (skipped DP and advanced graphs like Dijkstra).
For Meta-specific questions, I used this amazing list — highly recommend: Meta Variant Compilation
https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/6615244/meta-variant-compilation-by-codingwithmi-0pm7/
🛠️ System Design:
I used helloInterview.com, bought the premium version. Their guided practice (LLM) was really solid and helped me practice frameworks for structured answers.
🗣️ Behavioral:
I used helloInterview’s story builder — made 6 stories and practiced reusing them. One thing: it didn’t cover the “boss you didn’t like” question, so prep that separately.
Final tip:
Go deeper than “accepted” — always ask how to make it more optimal. That’s what Meta really pushes for.
Good luck to everyone!