I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Meta (Seattle, WA) in Mar 2015
Interview
Was contacted by facebook recruiter. I thought I will give it a try. I selected in person tech screen vs phone interview since I think it is much easier to express yourself in person, plus there is whiteboard. Especially, if it is a graph or tree problem, easier to draw on whiteboard.
I had to sign NDA unfortunately, so won't be able to share the exact question. But for a software engineer (not senior), the question was pretty hard to solve in 40 minutes. Backtracking was required and the best solution to the problem is n! (n factorial). So if you haven't heard of the problem before, it is quite likely you will spend time just on finding an optimal solution before jumping to code. That's what I did. However, I was able to code most of the solution and interviewer seemed happy. He himself told me that.
Interviewer was pretty nice. He answered my questions pretty well and seemed down to earth, only thing I am not sure is the choice of question. I was informed that they will not move ahead with the on-site round, which is what I expected.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
NDA signed. But the question involved matrix calculations and required backtracking. Best solution was n!
Took about a month altogether, which felt longer given the intensity of the process. Kicked off with a technical screening, followed by two rigorous coding interviews. The DSA question on binary tree vertical order traversal hit me hard at first, but then I recognized the prompt instantly — I had just worked through something similar on PracHub. The final round was focused on system design, and while I ended up receiving an offer, I ultimately declined it. Overall, a challenging experience that definitely sharpened my skills.
1 leetcode med, 1 leetcode hard. make sure you know your DSA and leetcode questions. I wasn't able to get an offer bc i didnt complete the second question. Got a reply 2 days later saying they would move on
Overall, the process took a little over two weeks, which felt a bit longer than I anticipated. After a quick screening, I went through two technical rounds focusing on coding and DSA concepts. One of the questions was a classic palindrome check; mid-way through, I realized it was something I had practiced on PracHub just days earlier. The final step was a casual behavioral interview. I was relieved to get an offer shortly after, which I happily accepted.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a string, determine if it is a valid palindrome considering only alphanumeric characters and ignoring case.