I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Meta (Menlo Park, CA) in May 2015
Interview
I applied on facebook site, and was contacted not so long after, told to schedule a date for an interview. I was called exactly the time given, interviewer went straight to the point. He gave a very brief introduction about himself and we went straight to coding. He asked me just one question but I couldn't give the right answer as I did not go over some basic data structures.
I would advice that if you have an interview for any SWE, you should go over everything!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a string with parenthesis like "()()(()(()()", check to see if there are matching pairs. If there are matching pairs, return true, else return false.
For example, ()()() returns true, ()()()) returns false.
Recruiter call was pretty standard, first round was 2 Meta tagged LC mediums in 45 minutes. On-site was 2 coding sessions of 2 LC mediums, a system design interview and a behavioral interview with an engineering manager.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you answer if someone asks how long a deliverable or project will take?
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.
