I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Meta (Menlo Park, CA) in Jul 2012
Interview
After I solved a puzzle through InterviewStreet.com, a recruiter contacted me by e-mail and we set up an introductory phone call (15 min). She seemed really nice, she asked me to evaluate my knowledge on several technologies and sublects like C++, Perl, Algorithms/Data Structures, .NET Framework etc. She immediately told me that she was going to schedule a technical interview with an engineer.
The engineer called me several days later and asked me to solve together an algorithmic problem via a workspace sharing website. We could both write code simultaneously and see each other's work. The question wasn't hard and although I had a pretty good idea how to solve the task, I wasn't very smooth and made several mistakes. Maybe because it was my first technical interview ever.
Bottom line, I liked their attitude and they did a good job. It was my fault that I didn't go to a second interview and I've learnt my lessons. It was a very good experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write a function that finds the square root of a decimal number.
Got a referral through a friend who worked at Meta, which sped up the entire process. After a casual initial chat, I went through a technical interview where I faced a DSA question about validating palindromes. The interviewer was friendly but rigorous. During prep, I had spent time with the coding challenges on PracHub, and it was funny to see a similar palindrome question pop up. Overall, I received an offer, but ultimately decided to decline it after careful consideration.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a string s, return true if it can be a palindrome after deleting at most one character (Valid Palindrome II).
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
