Meta | E5 | US | March 2025 [Reject]
- Location
- US
- Posted
- 14 May 2025
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.
How it went
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.
Questions asked (8)
- 01
Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array
Data Structures & Algorithms · Medium
Open the problemGiven an array of integers
numssorted in non-decreasing order, find the starting and ending position of a giventargetvalue. Iftargetis not found in the array, return[-1, -1]. You must write an algorithm withO(log n)runtime complexity. - 02
Clone Graph
Data Structures & Algorithms · Medium
Open the problemGiven 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.
- 03
Kth Largest Element in an Array
Data Structures & Algorithms · Medium
Open the problemGiven an integer array
numsand an integerk, return thekth largest element in the array. Note that it is thekth largest element in the sorted order, not thekth distinct element. You must solve it inO(n)time complexity. - 04
Valid Palindrome II
Data Structures & Algorithms · Easy
Open the problemGiven a string
s, returntrueif thescan be palindrome after deleting at most one character from it. - 05
Vertical Order Traversal of a Binary Tree
Data Structures & Algorithms · Hard
Open the problemGiven the
rootof 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. - 06
Valid Palindrome III
Data Structures & Algorithms · Hard
Open the problemGiven a string
sand an integerk, returntrueifsis ak-palindrome. A string is ak-palindrome if it can be transformed into a palindrome by deleting at mostkcharacters from it. - 07
Buildings With an Ocean View
Data Structures & Algorithms · Medium
Open the problemThere are
nbuildings in a line. You are given an integer arrayheightsof sizenwhereheights[i]is the height of theith 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. - 08
Live Comment System Design
System Design
Open the problemDesign a system to handle live comments, as detailed in the provided resource.