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
Reported Sep 2026

Offer After 1.5 Years Out of Work and 600+ Hours of Prep

I had been out of work for a year and a half. Once I got properly serious about the search, I fired off about 100 applications and basically got silence. A few startups got in touch, but nothing picked up speed. Then someone referred me at Meta and a recruiter asked to set up a call. One choice early on, I believe, defined everything that followed. I turned the startup conversations down and comm…

OfferOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

Full Onsite Loop Plus My AI Coding Interview Playbook

Most of the questions were the classic, well-worn ones you'd already find on the forum. Phone Leetcode easy + mid Onsite 2 AI coding rounds + 2 AI system design rounds + 1 BQ AI coding 01: Friend system: Implement a friend recommendation algorithm Given data: a list of users, a list of friendships (user-user pairs) Design a strategy to recommend new friends to a user (e.g., search for friends of…

Onsite0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Aug 2026

Six Weeks of E5 Preparation and an Equity Negotiation

Sharing my recent Meta E5 interview experience. Hope it helps people preparing. Background: Bay Area Backend / Distributed Systems About 7 years of experience Target level: E5 Senior Software Engineer Preparation time: About 6 weeks Overall impression: Meta E5 doesn't lean especially heavily on hard algorithms. It looks more at a senior engineer's overall ability: consistent coding, depth in syst…

OfferOnsite2
MetaSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

Explaining an AI System and Solving a Maze with AI

This will most likely become a rejection story. At the beginning, I was asked to introduce an AI system I had designed and explain the problem it solved. I stumbled through the explanation, and the interviewer did not seem very satisfied. I probably did not make the project sound impressive enough. Next came AI coding. This really felt like a company going all in on AI, because everything involve…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

Phone Screen Plus a Four-Round Virtual Onsite

Meta phone screen + virtual onsite writeup, with the questions and my thought process included. Since I signed an NDA, I'm coding the problem names as homophones — sorry about that. Phone Screen 45 minutes, two questions. The first five minutes were self-intro, and pretty much the rest of the time was spent coding. Question 1, coded 1091: a 2D grid, get from the top-left corner to the bottom-righ…

Onsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience: A fast coding loop with system design and values checks

The process began with a recruiter call, then continued through several rounds that mixed fast coding, system design, and behavioral checks. The coding loop was intense. I had two data-structure and algorithm problems in a tight window and had to keep moving even when the clock made every step feel consequential. I remember needing to solve problems quickly while also justifying my approach. Syst…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Meta Software Engineer Interview Experience: Easy and medium LeetCode with time-space trade-offs

After a recruiter reached out, I started with an online assessment. Then I moved into the technical loop. The first coding sequence had two LeetCode problems, one easy and one medium. I had to explain my approach thoroughly, including why I chose certain data structures and what the time and space trade-offs were. The next rounds continued in the same coding-focused style through virtual meetings…

OfferOnline Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Reported Jun 2026

Meta Software Engineer interview: 45-minute coding and leaderboard design

After I was scheduled, I had a coding round built around speed and follow-through. I worked through two LeetCode-style problems in 45 minutes and focused on optimization. At least one had a follow-up that required improving the solution instead of stopping once it worked. The onsite loop added coding, behavioral discussion, and system design. The design question involved a leaderboard-style compo…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
May 2026

Strong Everywhere Except System Design

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

Five Rounds Including AI Coding and a New Agentic System Design Round

The full loop has a new format now — five rounds, and I got the rejection letter a week later. Round one, behavioral (BQ). Went pretty well — the usual how-do-you-resolve-conflict stuff, plus some talk about impactful projects, especially AI projects. Round two, AI coding: a card game — find three cards that sum to 15. Split into three steps: find the bug, implement the algorithm, optimize the al…

RejectedOnsite0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Apr 2026

Passed a Four-Round AI-Enabled Onsite, Team Match Still in Limbo

Position: Software Engineer, Product Result: Target E5 Pass The OA was pretty old at this point, but the questions are in the forum's question bank. The recruiter waived my phone screen and put me straight into the onsite. The onsite was 4 rounds total. AI-Enabled System Design Billed as "AI-Enabled," but the interviewer seemed to be doing this format for the first time — his question bank wasn't…

In progressOnsite0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Apr 2026

E5 Full Loop with a Card-Deck AI Coding Round

Recruiter reachout came in late February. After that, every step got scheduled about a month out — the whole process moved at a pretty relaxed pace. Phone Screen LC 65 (medium; also the second question from a 12/4 compiled coding list on the forum). VO (virtual onsite) Coding: LC 121; LC 199 AI coding: a card deck problem BQ: favorite project (scope/complexity) / conflict resolution / moving fast…

Onsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

OA for a Brand-New AI Native Team

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

In progressOnline AssessmentXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Apr 2026

Bombed Coding, Strong Design Rounds, Follow-ups Before E6 Team Matching

Meta had been on my wishlist ever since it began hiring in Bangalore in February 2025. An old colleague, now an E7, gave me a referral, and through all of 2025 I applied to a wide spread of openings without once checking the level requirements. Job alerts were on, and any new posting got an application from me right away. At some point a recruiter hiring for an E6 role based in London reached out…

In progressOnsite0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Reported Mar 2026

Bombed Algorithmic Coding, Got a Retry and Reached Team Match

Background A recruiter cold-emailed me about an E5 position at Meta two years ago. I was already half-looking to leave my job, so I went for it. I made it to the last round, but the product architecture round and one of the coding rounds went badly for me. I'm back this time because layoffs look likely where I work now, and I wanted to prepare differently. My prep came down to three things: an on…

In progressOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Mar 2026

the OA Was Basically the Same as a Study Article

The Meta RS OA wasn't too hard. I'd previously studied from an article that turned out to basically be the exact same questions. Q1: You need to find the index computed from rating divided by prices. If two entries tie, keep the one with the smaller index. When comparing, you don't need to compute the actual decimal — just cross-multiply to compare the two fractions directly. Q2: You need to comp…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Mar 2026

Two AI Coding Rounds, a LeetCode System Design, and an AI-Enabled Design Round With No AI

Two AI coding rounds, one traditional system design, one AI-Enabled Design round. AI coding 1: Max Unique Character Subset — given a list of words, find a subset of words where no two words in the subset share any repeated letters, and the subset covers the largest possible total number of unique letters. AI coding 2: Kind of a mess. This round the interviewer opened by telling me he hadn't reali…

In progressOnsite0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Mar 2026

Strong E6 Onsite, Rejected at Hiring Committee

A while back I interviewed for an E6 INFRA role at Meta. Every single interview felt positive, but I ultimately got cut at the hiring committee round, with no specific feedback. Pretty frustrated, but nothing to do except move on. Phone screens: I got "Er Liu" and "Odd Mutant" — aced both. Onsite coding: "Commander" and "Yao San San" — also aced both, and the follow-up edge cases the interviewer…

RejectedOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Mar 2026

Weak Signal on Coding 2 But the Offer Came Anyway

I feel really lucky, I got a great recruiter. From the initial reach out all the way to finalizing the offer they were thorough about everything, kept emphasizing "I'm on your side." In the debrief they told me Coding 2 had a weak signal, but the quorum still generously let it through. The interviewers were all nice too — when I interviewed for an intern role before I ran into people who were dis…

OfferOnsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Interviewing While Layoff News Broke, LC 215 and LC 236 With Follow-ups

I was in the middle of interviewing when the news broke about a big round of layoffs. Setting AI aside, the questions for the traditional software engineer track seem to be getting harder and harder. I got in through a referral from an alum, so the process into Meta went pretty smoothly. The pace was actually pretty fast — it took about two weeks to get through the first two rounds. The whole int…

In progressTechnical Screen0

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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