Meta

Role: Software Engineer (L4)

College: Not Specified (Master's in CS)

Interview Date: 2024-02-10

Interview Type: Off-Campus (via referral)

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Hard

Rounds: 6 (Mock, Screening, Onsite Coding 1, Onsite Coding 2, Behavioral, System Design)

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms (DFS), System Design, Behavioral

Experience:

This candidate, with 3 years of experience and a Master's in CS, applied via referral for an L4 Software Engineer role at Meta.

Mock Interview: Questions included "Move 0 elements to end" and "Maximum number of islands." The candidate struggled with the first but eventually found a solution. Feedback indicated a need to listen carefully to hints.

Screening Round: Questions were "Right side view and Left side view of binary tree" and "LRU cache." The candidate felt they performed well.

Onsite Coding Round 1: Questions were "Maximum sum of the subtree in binary tree" and "Evaluate a string having only + and * (e.g., 5*10+3 = 53)." The candidate made a minor mistake in the first question (not considering negative results) but fixed it with a hint. The second question was solved without mistakes.

Onsite Coding Round 2: Questions included "Get all the subsets in a given subset (e.g., {A,B,C} -> [{},{A},{B},{C},{A,B},{A,B,C},{B,C}])" and "Valid word abbreviation." The candidate solved both optimally but had some issues explaining and with variable names, which were corrected with interviewer feedback.

Behavioral Interview: General behavioral questions were asked, such as challenges in a project, strengths, weaknesses, conflict with a manager, handling deadlines, receiving feedback, and taking initiative. This round was shorter than expected (25 minutes).

System Design: The task was to "Design an ad aggregation system."

Despite solving all coding questions optimally, the candidate was rejected, with the recruiter stating they "haven't reached the expectations of L4."