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 EngineerIntern
Nov 2025

OA, Tech Screen, and Two Team-Match Calls for an ML PhD Intern Offer

I finally landed the 26 summer offer that had been hanging over me. The role is SDE, ML PhD intern. Timeline: Oct 14: HR reached out Oct 24: OA + Tech Screening Nov 2: Two Team Match interviews Nov 10: Moved into the hiring process Nov 26: Offer The OA was basically the same questions people have already shared here, randomly pulled from the question bank — nothing harder than a Hard. Technical I…

OfferOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Full Loop After a Slow Screen, Rejected With No Feedback

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Rejected After an Onsite Where the Interviewer Argued Over Big-O Notation

I just got told yesterday that I didn't pass, so I'm reporting back to the forum — and venting a little while I'm at it. Phone: a coding round. OA: a banking-system themed problem. I only passed two rounds, but was told I'd still move on to the onsite. Virtual onsite: System design: the same question as another post I'd already seen on the forum. AI coding: a card game — design a strategy to guar…

RejectedOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Four Onsite Rounds With an AI Coding Segment

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OnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Onsite Loop Sunk by a System Design Round

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Oct 2025

Phone Screen Plus a Five-Round VO

I interviewed at Meta at the end of last year. Reading other people's interview reports on this forum helped me a lot, so I'm sharing mine to give back. Phone screen: the first part was the usual behavioral questions, and the second part was two LeetCode problems tagged Easy on Meta's list. VO (virtual onsite): 2 rounds of coding, 2 rounds of system design, and 1 round of BQ. The coding and syste…

Onsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Bank System OA, Ran Out of Time on Level 3

This is the old bank system question from the forum. Let me add some details. Level 2 needs to output a string with the account information: {accountId}{amount spent}. For level 3, all transfers and pending transfers are best kept in a map rather than a list, to save time. Level 1: just creating an account, and adding/deducting balance. Level 2: track the n users who transferred out the most mone…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

A Four-Part In-Memory Database OA on CodeSignal

Just finished it, seems like a new OA, I haven't seen this one on the forum before. The first two parts were pretty easy. The third was a bit annoying but manageable. The fourth needed some time. It was on CodeSignal. Implement an in-memory database. This database is basically a double hashmap, something like: The key is user1, user2, the field is age, height, and the value is 12, 180. Step 1: St…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Three of Four Levels on the Bank System Question

Bank System. This is an old question that has shown up on the forum before. Level 1: implement the createAccount, deposit, and pay methods. Level 2: find the top N activity, based on the sum of deposit and pay amounts. You just maintain a size-N min-heap with a priority queue. Level 3: When you transfer, you hold the money from the source account; when you accept, it actually moves to the target…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Nearest-Duplicate-Within-K, Then a DFS Question I Didn't Finish

The first question was to find the nearest matching numbers in an array, where the index distance needs to be within k. Honestly a pretty simple question — basically just use a map to store value-to-index, then do one pass through the array. The follow-up was how to improve the space complexity. My first thought was that I'd need to clear out the earlier entries in the map, so she had me write th…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

A Four-Level Bank System OA, Time Crunch on Level 3

Bank System, an old question. Adding some details: Level 2 needs to output a string with the account info: {accountId}{amount paid out}. For level 3, both all-transfers and pending-transfers are better done with a map rather than a list, to save time. Level 1 is just creating an account, and adding to / withdrawing from the balance. Level 2: count the top N users by total amount transferred out —…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Jul 2025

A Level-Up Coding Screen Building a Bank System

There were four tests total, in a format similar to a design question, but they weren't given all at once — it was level-up style. You only get the next question once you pass the test cases for the current level. The whole time you're required to share your entire screen, with camera and mic on. I didn't manage to finish. I think the main difficulty was time management, and the fact that each ti…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Jul 2025

Four-Round Onsite, Rejected After a System Design Round I Hadn't Prepped For

March 26: first round, the screen. Two medium questions — one I'd never seen before, and the other was a variant of vertical order traversal. I'd actually only grinded 32 problems total, and somehow I passed. Still feels like a miracle. Onsite was on the 2nd. Let me update on that too. Four rounds total, as follows: System design. The interviewer was very nice, and the topic happened to be a syst…

RejectedOnsite0

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.

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