Back in 2023 I pushed myself hard, so hard that I ignored my health completely, and I still got rejected. It stung a lot more than I thought it would. I had just finished my master's and Meta was the company I wanted most, so when it fell through I let it eat at me for far too long. It even cost me other interviews, and not because I lacked the skills. My head was simply stuck on the one offer I didn't get. That was a mistake, and I would tell anyone in the same spot not to repeat it. No one company is worth sacrificing your confidence, your health, or your other shots.
This year the call came again, and I handled it differently. I asked for enough time to get ready, I kept my nerves in check, and above all I refused to wreck my health for it. Honestly that change in attitude did a lot of the work.
For coding, I went through the 100 most frequently asked problems on LeetCode's Meta list, though cramming is a better word for it than practicing. For the behavioral round I used a structured framework from an online course and spent roughly two days putting my stories together. A friend and I also ran several mock interviews over Discord, and those helped a great deal, mostly by showing me where my answers had holes and where I was unclear.
For system design I used the same course's approach and worked through about 15 well-known questions. Bad luck: the one question I had skipped while reviewing was the one they asked me. I got down-leveled from L5 to L4 because of it.
The main thing I took away is this: whatever system design question you prepare, make sure you can dig into at least three separate areas in depth. Doing that was the toughest bit for me, and in the moment I couldn't think of them fast enough.
Right now I'm having a hard time accepting L4, and I haven't figured out what I'm going to do next.
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