Interview Experiences

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

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138 stories

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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
MetaData Engineer
Sep 2025

A Confusing Building-Capacity Coding Problem Plus SQL on the Library Schema

Python Questions 1 and 2 are basically the same as the ones posted yesterday. For question 1, I got a follow-up: how do you write it without heapq. For question 2, the log list's true/false values need to alternate, and you also have to consider that a book needs to be checked out before it can be returned — otherwise that's wrong too. Question 3 is a new one I'd never seen before and it's a bit…

Technical Screen0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Sep 2025

GenAI Reorg Chaos Mid-Loop

The whole interview experience was pretty bizarre, moving at the same pace as Zuckerberg's MSL reorg. At the start, it was the GenAI department interviewing me, matched to one specific team. Then they just couldn't get an interview scheduled — it dragged on for over a month. By the time the interview finally got scheduled, GenAI had already been carved out to Alex Wang, so this was one of the mos…

Onsite0
MetaData Engineer
Sep 2025

Onsite Loop: Product Sense, Data Modeling, Python, SQL

Product Sense (10 minutes) Try to keep your answers fairly brief. Prepare 4-6 main metrics and you don't need to explain in much detail why you picked each one, unless you feel the interviewer wants to hear more or they ask directly. Every interviewer's expectations are a little different, but overall I felt they don't dig in that deep, so don't spend too much time preparing for this part. The qu…

Onsite0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Aug 2025

45-Minute SQL and A/B Test Screen for L5 Product Analytics

I've been a statistician for two years, and now I'm trying out DS or quant. In late August, Meta's HR reached out to me for an L5 Product Analytics DS interview. After the HR screen, the first technical round was 45 minutes, with 1 SQL question and 1 product question. The setup: an advertiser has a shop on FB and also has their own website. After FB serves a user an ad, they look at whether the c…

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
MetaData Scientist
Aug 2025

Ads Trade-off Questions in the Technical Screen

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Technical ScreenXP0
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
MetaApplied Scientist
Aug 2025

Sandbox Print Bug Sank the OA, Rejected Anyway

Got an OA, four questions, 90 minutes. It was a banking system. The first question was to write functions for generating accounts, depositing money, transferring money, and so on. The second question was to write a function that sorts all accounts by outgoing transaction volume, then based on an input n, outputs the top n accounts. For example if n=3, you had to output the top three accounts by o…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Aug 2025

Strong on Stats and SQL, Rejected After a Moderate Product Round

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Aug 2025

Positive Phone Screen, Killed by Boomerang Leveling Rule

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WithdrewTechnical ScreenXP0
MetaData Engineer
Aug 2025

Three Onsite Case Studies on Private Accounts, Carpooling, and Netflix

The overall experience was okay — at least all the interviewers were superficially friendly. But two of them were more than 5 minutes late. For every product sense question, they'd first ask you how you understood the product, then ask what dimensions there were (at this stage they just wanted a high-level list of entities), and finally what metrics you'd use. The first question was a new one, ab…

Onsite0
MetaData Scientist
Jul 2025

A Verbal SQL Prompt That Threw Me Off

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Technical ScreenXP0
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
MetaData Engineer
Jul 2025

Four Onsite Rounds in One Day

Four rounds total, all held on the same day, with a lunch break in between: Round 1: ETL technical Round 2: Data modeling Round 3: ETL technical (leaning more toward real-time processing) Round 4: Behavioral + ownership-related HR calls ahead of time to explain what each round covers, so the overall schedule is pretty clear. The first two rounds lean toward data modeling and traditional batch pro…

Onsite0

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