I applied online. The process took 4 days. I interviewed at Meta (Palo Alto, CA) in Aug 2009
Interview
I had 2 telephonic interviews and the questions are below. Recruiters are pretty cool in facebook.
1. General Resume stuff.
2. Merge Sort - Write code for it. Complexity.
3. SQL - self join: Asked me to write a query, don't remember the exact question.
4. Advantage of B Trees - Used in databases for indexing. Adv. Less number of memory lookups because of less hierarchy. Large fanout.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a set of inputs <number, userid> in a log file:
log: <number, userid>
example:
1,2
1,1
2,1
3,1
1,2
out: <number, count>
1,2
2,1
3,1
The output should be all the unique numbers and the count associated with them.
The entire process usually takes 3–8 weeks, depending on scheduling and the specific role. Coding interviews heavily emphasize common DSA topics such as arrays, strings, trees, graphs, BFS/DFS, heaps, hash maps, and dynamic programming. System design becomes increasingly important for E4+ positions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given an array of integers and a target value, return the indices of two numbers that add up to the target
Unexpectedly, the first question in the technical round felt familiar. It was about finding a subset of strings with unique character concatenation — same problem I had worked through on PracHub a few days earlier. The interview included a recruiter screen followed by a rigorous pair of technical interviews where I tackled data structures and algorithms alongside system design concepts. After successfully answering a few more challenging DSA questions, I received an offer. The entire experience was intense but ultimately rewarding, and I happily accepted the position.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given an array of strings, pick a subset whose concatenation contains no duplicate characters, and return the maximum possible length of that concatenation.
Standard cookie cutter interview with a coding interview, a system design interview and culture interview. The coding part is basically leetcode. The system design is what you can find on many youtube videos. The culture one is more tricky as they want to see that you fit Meta's culture, not that you were doing great at your existing company. So skills like dealing with conflict without calling in managers is sought after.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
coding: I forgot, sorry
system design: design ticketmaster
culture: talk about past project; when you disagreed with a peer; how I resolved dissagreements, etc.
