Meta | E5 | US | March 2025 [Reject]
Summary
I interviewed for an E5 role at Meta in the US in March 2025 and received a rejection. My coding and behavioral rounds were strong, but I felt less confident about the system design interview.
Full Experience
Summarizing my experience:
- Coding: Went perfect. I discussed multiple solutions, coded the most optimal one (or the one the interviewer preferred), tested thoroughly, and discussed complexities. I breezed through this round.
- Behavioral: Was standard. My answers were aligned with company values and I used the STAR method.
- System Design (SD): Went as per the standard roadmap. I had sufficient time to do a couple of deep dives. This is the only round I'm not confident about because of the nature of the interview.
Opinion: Sometimes interviewers have a solution in mind and that's what they want to hear.
The market is extremely tough; one word out of a picture-perfect answer and you're out.
Interview Questions (8)
Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array
Given an array of integers nums sorted in non-decreasing order, find the starting and ending position of a given target value. If target is not found in the array, return [-1, -1]. You must write an algorithm with O(log n) runtime complexity.
Clone Graph
Given a reference of a node in a connected undirected graph, return a deep copy (clone) of the graph. Each node in the graph contains a value (int) and a list (List[Node]) of its neighbors.
Kth Largest Element in an Array
Given an integer array nums and an integer k, return the kth largest element in the array. Note that it is the kth largest element in the sorted order, not the kth distinct element. You must solve it in O(n) time complexity.
Valid Palindrome II
Given a string s, return true if the s can be palindrome after deleting at most one character from it.
Vertical Order Traversal of a Binary Tree
Given the root of a binary tree, calculate the vertical order traversal of the tree. For each node at (row, col) position, its left child will be at (row + 1, col - 1) and its right child will be at (row + 1, col + 1). The vertical traversal of a binary tree is a list of lists of node values, where each inner list contains the node values in a specific vertical order. Nodes within the same row and column should be sorted by their values.
Valid Palindrome III
Given a string s and an integer k, return true if s is a k-palindrome. A string is a k-palindrome if it can be transformed into a palindrome by deleting at most k characters from it.
Buildings With an Ocean View
There are n buildings in a line. You are given an integer array heights of size n where heights[i] is the height of the ith building. A building has an ocean view if all the buildings to its right have a smaller height. Return a list of the indices (0-indexed) of buildings that have an ocean view, sorted in increasing order.
Live Comment System Design
Design a system to handle live comments, as detailed in the provided resource.