Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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53 stories

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MetaSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A New AI Project Round, Then a Maze Coding Fail

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Feb 2026

Good Feedback, Then Rejected by Hiring Committee

Meta Sr SDE. Phone Screen LC: Si Jiu Ba (coded/obscured problem name; the original title was not stated) LC: Yi Er Jiu (same — coded form) Onsite Coding (scheduled after 4/16, seems like both rounds were AI Coding by then) LC: San San Jiu (coded form) LC: Yao Liu Wu Ling (coded form) — only the parent was given, pretty abstract; I ended up working it out with the interviewer on the whiteboard AI-…

RejectedOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

An AI-Assisted Maze Solver Onsite

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OnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Feb 2026

An AI Coding Round Built Around a Maze Problem

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OfferOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Feb 2026

A Proctored OA Where 35 of 40 Questions Were About AI

VO on CodeSignal, camera on, screen shared. I had AI clean this up a bit — why has the polishing gotten so hard to use lately... it's not that it was hard, it's that the questions were long, with video explanations, so it took time just to understand them. New grad. HR reached out directly, and they want this filled very urgently — I need to get pushed to the final round within two weeks, and thi…

In progressOnline Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

A BQ Round That's All About Your Projects

This round was Meta's BQ (behavioral questions) round. Overall it felt more focused than Google's on digging into your personal ability through your own projects, and the questions flowed into each other pretty naturally. 1) Ambiguity The opening question was: "How do you deal with ambiguity?" I answered using a fairly complex project where the information was incomplete, and went into a lot of d…

Other0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

E5 Onsite With a Surprise AI-Assisted Round

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OnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Jan 2026

Prepping in 60 Days After a Layoff

My Meta process began under a lot of pressure. Microsoft laid me off, and I gave myself 60 days to get a new job lined up. Because of that deadline I kept my prep tight and disciplined. I didn't wander around and I didn't grind blindly. I just picked things and executed. What my prep looked like Data structures and algorithms Over the years I had done about 450 LeetCode problems. For Meta I went…

OfferOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

Four-Question CodeSignal OA Before Christmas

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In progressOnline AssessmentXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Jan 2026

Third Loop After Two Failures, One Messy Coding Round

Backstory Two earlier Meta attempts had ended in failure, so going into round three I was sure I had to change my whole approach and be much more systematic. Looking back, those misses pointed at the same gaps: my prep was shallow and I hadn't kept it steady. Preparation This time I committed roughly three months to getting ready properly. The plan came down to two things: LeetCode mediums and ha…

Onsite0
MetaSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Jan 2026

GPT-5 Now an Option in the AI Coding Round, Failed on a Food Delivery System Design

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Jan 2026

Back After a 3-Year Break, Coding Prep Down to Under 25%

I have 15+ years of experience in infra and distributed systems, and this was the first time in over 3 years that I sat through interviews. How did you prepare? What worked and what didn't? LeetCode covered coding, an online system design course covered system design, and for the behavioral rounds I kept a journal of my stories written out in STAR format. I knew I was a rusty coder, so when I sta…

OfferOnsite0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Dec 2025

E5 Product Role, Frontend-Focused Design Round and a Five-Week Team Match

Hi everyone, I went through the loop for an E5 Software Engineer, Product role in the Bay Area. Below is a rundown of the timeline, how I studied, and what came up. It started when a recruiter contacted me about the position. I put the phone screen roughly a month out so there was room to study. It consisted of two LeetCode problems in 40 minutes, which is the usual Meta setup. I learned I had pa…

OfferOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Dec 2025

Failed the AI-Enabled Coding Round, Got the Offer Anyway

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OfferOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Dec 2025

Down-Leveled from L5 to L4 After a Skipped System Design Question

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…

OfferOther0
MetaSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Dec 2025

Three Coding Rounds, One BQ, and an Offer

I am sharing my experience interviewing for Meta's 2025 new graduate role last year. Interview experience The interviews did not feel easy. Other people's Meta loops seemed to get two medium tagged problems and generous grading, but every one of my rounds felt difficult. The first round tested a disconnected graph. In the second round, I had 35 minutes to explain and write one hard and two medium…

OfferOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Dec 2025

Nailed Coding and System Design, Got Stuck in the AI-Coding Round

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RejectedOnsitePremium0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Dec 2025

Interviewer No-Show, Then Ticketmaster System Design

This was from before the redesign — I heard they've added AI Coding now? First, kudos to the recruiter — she replied promptly every time. For one of the rounds, the interviewer was a no-show. I waited 10 minutes, then called the recruiter and she picked up right away. A bit later she told me the interviewer had something come up unexpectedly, that she'd already complained to that interviewer's ma…

Onsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Dec 2025

Four Onsite Rounds Including an AI-Enabled Coding Test

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OfferOnsitePremium0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Nov 2025

Four Onsite Rounds Including an AI-Enabled Coding Round

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OfferOnsiteXP0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

Share your experience to earn XP