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Interview experiences
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Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior Data Scientist Interview Experience — 45-Minute SQL and A/B Test Screen for L5 Product Analytics
I've been a statistician for two years, and now I'm trying out DS or quant. In late August, Meta's HR reached out to me for an L5 Product Analytics DS interview. After the HR screen, the first technical round was 45 minutes, with 1 SQL question and 1 product question. The setup: an advertiser has a shop on FB and also has their own website. After FB serves a user an ad, they look at whether the c…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior Data Scientist Interview Experience — Onsite Case on a New Chat App, Ending in a Spaghetti-Chart Slide Critique
The interviewer had many years of experience and had a friendly, easygoing demeanor. Overall I felt our conversation flowed pretty smoothly, back and forth, and I was able to quickly follow up on a lot of the points he raised and give balanced, two-sided answers. Structurally I stuck to the standard framework (clarify, goal, pros/cons, hypothesis, data points, ...). Maybe because this was L5, the…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience — Good Feedback, Then Rejected by Hiring Committee
Meta Sr SDE. Phone Screen LC: Si Jiu Ba (coded/obscured problem name; the original title was not stated) LC: Yi Er Jiu (same — coded form) Onsite Coding (scheduled after 4/16, seems like both rounds were AI Coding by then) LC: San San Jiu (coded form) LC: Yao Liu Wu Ling (coded form) — only the parent was given, pretty abstract; I ended up working it out with the interviewer on the whiteboard AI-…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience — Passed a Four-Round AI-Enabled Onsite, Team Match Still in Limbo
Position: Software Engineer, Product Result: Target E5 Pass The OA was pretty old at this point, but the questions are in the forum's question bank. The recruiter waived my phone screen and put me straight into the onsite. The onsite was 4 rounds total. AI-Enabled System Design Billed as "AI-Enabled," but the interviewer seemed to be doing this format for the first time — his question bank wasn't…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience — Six Weeks of E5 Preparation and an Equity Negotiation
Sharing my recent Meta E5 interview experience. Hope it helps people preparing. Background: Bay Area Backend / Distributed Systems About 7 years of experience Target level: E5 Senior Software Engineer Preparation time: About 6 weeks Overall impression: Meta E5 doesn't lean especially heavily on hard algorithms. It looks more at a senior engineer's overall ability: consistent coding, depth in syst…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior+ Data Engineer Interview Experience — Leadership and Fullstack Phone Screen, Rejected Over 'Not Enough Impact'
From the recruiter to the interviewers, the whole thing gave off an absurd vibe. I was applying for a senior position, and the job description didn't even list a level at the time. After I applied, the recruiter had me submit my availability directly — no call at all. Once it was scheduled, I was told it would be one Leadership round and one Fullstack round. I thought that was a little strange at…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior+ Site Reliability Engineer Interview Experience — Two Phone Screens and an Inexplicable Rejection
Two phone screens for Meta PE (the SRE-equivalent role there), 45 minutes each. Round 1, System (full-loop troubleshooting): same prompt as another thread posted on this forum, but the interviewer didn't seem to have a specific answer in mind. They asked a bunch of pretty open-ended things — how do you make sure everything keeps running smoothly during the days you're on call? If something breaks…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior+ Software Engineer Interview Experience — E5 Full Loop with a Card-Deck AI Coding Round
Recruiter reachout came in late February. After that, every step got scheduled about a month out — the whole process moved at a pretty relaxed pace. Phone Screen LC 65 (medium; also the second question from a 12/4 compiled coding list on the forum). VO (virtual onsite) Coding: LC 121; LC 199 AI coding: a card deck problem BQ: favorite project (scope/complexity) / conflict resolution / moving fast…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Senior+ Software Engineer Interview Experience — Strong E6 Onsite, Rejected at Hiring Committee
A while back I interviewed for an E6 INFRA role at Meta. Every single interview felt positive, but I ultimately got cut at the hiring committee round, with no specific feedback. Pretty frustrated, but nothing to do except move on. Phone screens: I got "Er Liu" and "Odd Mutant" — aced both. Onsite coding: "Commander" and "Yao San San" — also aced both, and the follow-up edge cases the interviewer…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer interview: 45-minute coding and leaderboard design
After I was scheduled, I had a coding round built around speed and follow-through. I worked through two LeetCode-style problems in 45 minutes and focused on optimization. At least one had a follow-up that required improving the solution instead of stopping once it worked. The onsite loop added coding, behavioral discussion, and system design. The design question involved a leaderboard-style compo…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — A BQ Round That's All About Your Projects
This round was Meta's BQ (behavioral questions) round. Overall it felt more focused than Google's on digging into your personal ability through your own projects, and the questions flowed into each other pretty naturally. 1) Ambiguity The opening question was: "How do you deal with ambiguity?" I answered using a fairly complex project where the information was incomplete, and went into a lot of d…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience: A fast coding loop with system design and values checks
The process began with a recruiter call, then continued through several rounds that mixed fast coding, system design, and behavioral checks. The coding loop was intense. I had two data-structure and algorithm problems in a tight window and had to keep moving even when the clock made every step feel consequential. I remember needing to solve problems quickly while also justifying my approach. Syst…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — A Four-Level Bank System OA, Time Crunch on Level 3
Bank System, an old question. Adding some details: Level 2 needs to output a string with the account info: {accountId}{amount paid out}. For level 3, both all-transfers and pending-transfers are better done with a map rather than a list, to save time. Level 1 is just creating an account, and adding to / withdrawing from the balance. Level 2: count the top N users by total amount transferred out —…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — A Four-Part In-Memory Database OA on CodeSignal
Just finished it, seems like a new OA, I haven't seen this one on the forum before. The first two parts were pretty easy. The third was a bit annoying but manageable. The fourth needed some time. It was on CodeSignal. Implement an in-memory database. This database is basically a double hashmap, something like: The key is user1, user2, the field is age, height, and the value is 12, 180. Step 1: St…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — A Level-Up Coding Screen Building a Bank System
There were four tests total, in a format similar to a design question, but they weren't given all at once — it was level-up style. You only get the next question once you pass the test cases for the current level. The whole time you're required to share your entire screen, with camera and mic on. I didn't manage to finish. I think the main difficulty was time management, and the fact that each ti…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Bank System OA, Ran Out of Time on Level 3
This is the old bank system question from the forum. Let me add some details. Level 2 needs to output a string with the account information: {accountId}{amount spent}. For level 3, all transfers and pending transfers are best kept in a map rather than a list, to save time. Level 1: just creating an account, and adding/deducting balance. Level 2: track the n users who transferred out the most mone…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience: Easy and medium LeetCode with time-space trade-offs
After a recruiter reached out, I started with an online assessment. Then I moved into the technical loop. The first coding sequence had two LeetCode problems, one easy and one medium. I had to explain my approach thoroughly, including why I chose certain data structures and what the time and space trade-offs were. The next rounds continued in the same coding-focused style through virtual meetings…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Explaining an AI System and Solving a Maze with AI
This will most likely become a rejection story. At the beginning, I was asked to introduce an AI system I had designed and explain the problem it solved. I stumbled through the explanation, and the interviewer did not seem very satisfied. I probably did not make the project sound impressive enough. Next came AI coding. This really felt like a company going all in on AI, because everything involve…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Five Rounds Including AI Coding and a New Agentic System Design Round
The full loop has a new format now — five rounds, and I got the rejection letter a week later. Round one, behavioral (BQ). Went pretty well — the usual how-do-you-resolve-conflict stuff, plus some talk about impactful projects, especially AI projects. Round two, AI coding: a card game — find three cards that sum to 15. Split into three steps: find the bug, implement the algorithm, optimize the al…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Four-Round Onsite, Rejected After a System Design Round I Hadn't Prepped For
March 26: first round, the screen. Two medium questions — one I'd never seen before, and the other was a variant of vertical order traversal. I'd actually only grinded 32 problems total, and somehow I passed. Still feels like a miracle. Onsite was on the 2nd. Let me update on that too. Four rounds total, as follows: System design. The interviewer was very nice, and the topic happened to be a syst…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Full Onsite Loop Plus My AI Coding Interview Playbook
Most of the questions were the classic, well-worn ones you'd already find on the forum. Phone Leetcode easy + mid Onsite 2 AI coding rounds + 2 AI system design rounds + 1 BQ AI coding 01: Friend system: Implement a friend recommendation algorithm Given data: a list of users, a list of friendships (user-user pairs) Design a strategy to recommend new friends to a user (e.g., search for friends of…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Interviewer No-Show, Then Ticketmaster System Design
This was from before the redesign — I heard they've added AI Coding now? First, kudos to the recruiter — she replied promptly every time. For one of the rounds, the interviewer was a no-show. I waited 10 minutes, then called the recruiter and she picked up right away. A bit later she told me the interviewer had something come up unexpectedly, that she'd already complained to that interviewer's ma…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Interviewing While Layoff News Broke, LC 215 and LC 236 With Follow-ups
I was in the middle of interviewing when the news broke about a big round of layoffs. Setting AI aside, the questions for the traditional software engineer track seem to be getting harder and harder. I got in through a referral from an alum, so the process into Meta went pretty smoothly. The pace was actually pretty fast — it took about two weeks to get through the first two rounds. The whole int…
Interview experiences · Meta
Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience — Nearest-Duplicate-Within-K, Then a DFS Question I Didn't Finish
The first question was to find the nearest matching numbers in an array, where the index distance needs to be within k. Honestly a pretty simple question — basically just use a map to store value-to-index, then do one pass through the array. The follow-up was how to improve the space complexity. My first thought was that I'd need to clear out the earlier entries in the map, so she had me write th…