Meta E5 Screening Round USA
Summary
I had a screening round at Meta for an E5 position in the USA, where I tackled two coding problems. Despite a slight delay at the start, I was able to discuss my solutions and correct a mistake with a hint from the interviewer.
Full Experience
I recently completed my PS screening round at Meta. The interviewer, a bit stern about my setup, asked me to remove my background blur and close all other applications. This initial hiccup unfortunately consumed the first five minutes of the interview. However, he quickly transitioned, providing his introduction and explaining the interview's structure before diving into the coding challenges.
The first problem involved balancing parentheses in a string. I began by verbally outlining my solution, touching upon a stack-based approach, and then proceeded to code it. I made sure to test with my own example and explain how I'd handle various corner cases. During a dry run, I spotted an error, which the interviewer kindly hinted at, allowing me to correct my solution effectively.
Next, I faced a vertical order traversal problem. Again, I started by verbally explaining my approach, even performing a mental traversal, before coding. My only minor misstep was including a sort that's often needed in LeetCode for same-row/column sorting but wasn't strictly required for their specific test case, which the interviewer gently corrected. I am now awaiting the outcome, expecting to hear back on Monday.
Interview Questions (2)
Given a string containing parentheses (e.g., '))((' or '(())'), determine the minimum number of removals or additions required to make the string balanced.
Implement the vertical order traversal of a binary tree.