Meta E5 MLE - full round
- Posted
- 9 Jul 2025
Summary
I interviewed for an E6 MLE position at Meta, which was later downgraded to E5. The interview process included a phone screen, two data structures and algorithms rounds, a behavioral round, and a system design round focused on Instagram reel recommendations. My third round, involving a Merge K Sorted Lists variant, did not go well.
How it went
Phone round:
- Custom Sort String
- Find peak element
- 15 mins behavioral (as I was interviewing for E6) The downgraded to E5 after this.
Round 1:
- Remove 1 character to find palindrome
- Shortest path in binary matrix
Round 2:
- A project that didnt go well
- A project that went well
- How do you deal with difficult co-worker
- A feedback was given and you took action on it
Round 3: Interviewer had a quality assurance person with him who was off-camera.
- Merge k sorted lists (LC hard)
- Variant of merge intervals; Detect most overlapping numbers
This one didnt go well. They conducted in a different way and wanted me to come up with the optimized solution for LC hard. Didnt let me write the code at all for the first one, while asking for Time, space complexity on every possible solution suggestion.
Round 4: Instragram reel recommendation
Questions asked (12)
- 01
Custom Sort String
Data Structures & Algorithms
Custom Sort String
- 02
Find Peak Element
Data Structures & Algorithms
Find peak element
- 03
Behavioral Questions for E6
Behavioral
15 minutes of behavioral questions were asked, as I was interviewing for an E6 role.
- 04
Remove One Character to Form Palindrome
Data Structures & Algorithms
Given a string, determine if it can be a palindrome by removing at most one character.
- 05
Shortest Path in Binary Matrix
Data Structures & Algorithms
Shortest path in binary matrix
- 06
Project That Didn't Go Well
Behavioral
Describe a project that didn't go well.
- 07
Project That Went Well
Behavioral
Describe a project that went well.
- 08
Dealing with Difficult Co-workers
Behavioral
How do you deal with difficult co-workers?
- 09
Acting on Feedback
Behavioral
Describe a situation where you were given feedback and took action on it.
- 10
Merge K Sorted Lists
Data Structures & Algorithms · Hard
Merge k sorted lists.
- 11
Variant of Merge Intervals: Detect Most Overlapping Numbers
Data Structures & Algorithms
A variant of the merge intervals problem, focused on detecting the most overlapping numbers.
- 12
Instagram Reel Recommendation System Design
System Design
Design a system for Instagram reel recommendation.