What do Meta job interviews and an interrogation room have in common? You’ll be inundated with questions! To get a job as a software engineer in the tech tribe of this powerful social network, you will be subjected to a series of questions that you will have to solve by demonstrating your knowledge, creativity and soft skills. As a prestigious company, recruiters need to assess whether you would be a good fit for their offices. The round of questioning usually has three specific objectives:
To measure your programming skills. To understand how well you perform in teams and whether you fit in with the company culture. To assess your creativity in designing scalable systems.
At 4Mars, we have the philosophy that, in order to pass a job interview, whatever the company, it is important to prepare yourself and know what to expect.
This is what we call ”hacking” the selection process.
That’s why we’ve put together the top questions that the social network where you probably met memes for the first time asks software engineering applicants.
We have listed the questions divided into three categories:
– Meta Technical Job Interview Questions
– Behavioural Interview Questions
– System Design Questions
– Code problems are part of the day-to-day work
dynamics at Meta, and as a software engineer, it will be your job to solve them efficiently, creatively and critically.
Therefore, it is essential that you demonstrate strong problem-solving skills.
The goal of this part of the Meta job interview is to convince you that:
– You think in a structured way
– You write code with great precision
– Your code is always error-free
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Want to know which Meta job interview questions are code-based? We also list some examples of the most common questions that test your hard skills. They are listed from the most frequent to the most exceptional.
Code questions asked by Meta in tech interviews.
1 Array/Strings
The frequency of this type of question is 38%, being the most common ones asked by Meta.
”Given a number array of n integers where n> 1, return an array output such that the output [i] is equal to the product of all elements of nums except nums”.
”Given a non-empty string s, you can remove at most one character. Judge whether you can convert it to a palindrome” ” ”Given a non-empty string s, you can remove at most one character.
”Implement the following permutation, which rearranges nums into the next largest permutation of nums lexicographically”.
“Given a string S and a string T, find the minimum window in S that will contain all characters in T at complexity O (n).”
“Given a series of strings, group the anagrams”.
”Given a string containing only the characters ‘(‘, ‘)’, ‘{‘, ‘}’, ‘[‘ and ‘]’, determine whether the input string is valid “.
“Given an array of n integers, are there elements a, b, c in numbers such that a + b + c = 0? Find all unique triplets in the matrix that give the sum of zero.
2. Graphs / Trees
The frequency of this type of question is 29%, having a high chance of appearing in your job interview on Facebook.
“Given the root node of a binary search tree, return the sum of the values of all nodes with a value between L and R (inclusive).”
“Given a binary tree, turn it into a circular doubly linked (in-place) list.”
“Implement an iterator on a binary search tree (BST). Your iterator will be initialised with the root node of a BST”.
“Given a binary tree, you need to calculate the length of the diameter of the tree.
Serialise and deserialise a binary tree”.
“Given a binary tree, find the maximum path sum.”
“Given an ordered dictionary (set of words) of a foreign language, find the order of the characters in the language.”
“Check if a given graph is bipartite or not.”
3. Dynamic Programming
With 18% frequency, you will be asked this type of job interview questions on Meta to test your knowledge. Such a method focuses on solving complex problems and reducing the execution time of an algorithm.
“Given a list of non-negative numbers and a target integer k, write a function to check if the matrix has a continuous submatrix of size at least 2 that sums to the multiple of k, i.e., sums up to n * k where n is also an integer.”
Suppose you have a matrix for which the i-th element is the price of a given share on the day i. If you were only allowed to complete at most one transaction (i.e. buy one and sell one share), design an algorithm to find the maximum profit.”
“Given an input string(s) and a pattern (p), implement regular expression matching with support for ‘.’ and ‘*’. “
“You are given a list of non-negative integers, a1, a2, …, an, and a target, S. You now have 2 symbols + and -. For each integer, you must choose one of + and – as your new symbol. Find out how many ways to assign symbols to make the sum of integers equal the target S. “
4. Search / Sort
At 9% frequency, the following questions will give you a base model for what to expect.
We have a list of points on the plane. Find the K points closest to the origin (0, 0) “.
“Given two matrices, write a function to calculate their intersection”.
Given a series of meeting time intervals consisting of start and end times [[s1, e1], [s2, e2], …]. find the minimum number of conference rooms required”.
5. Linked Lists/Linked Structures
This type of code-based Meta job interview question has a frequency of 4%.
“A linked list is provided so that each node contains an additional random pointer that could point to any node in the list or null. It returns a deep copy of the list”.
“Given an individually linked list L: L0? L1? …? Ln-1? Ln, reorder it to: L0? Ln? L1? Ln-1? L2? Ln-2? …”
6. Stacks / Queues
Questions related to data structures have a 2% frequency in Meta job interviews for software engineers.
“Implement the following operations on a queue using stacks”. Note: see more details in the following link
System Design questions in Meta job interviews
Think about the company’s products: Meta, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. They all have in common an active community of more than 1 billion monthly users.
So it is important that as a software engineer, you are trained to design highly scalable systems.
Typically, in System Design questions, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network tends to be open questions.
Take advantage of this part of your interview that you’re being creative and structured and are not at odds; it’s also important to know that the questions will vary depending on your level of experience.
10 System Design questions Meta might ask you:
How would you design Instagram/ Instagram Stories?
How would you design Facebook?)
How would you design Facebook Messenger?
How would you design live comment updates on Facebook posts?
How would you design an online collaborative editor (e.g. Google Docs)?
How would you design a typing function (e.g. Google search autocomplete)?
How would you design Twitter trending topics?
How would you design a distributed botnet?
How would you design a system that can handle millions of card transactions per hour?
How would you design security for Facebook’s corporate network from scratch (security team interview)
Behavioural questions in Facebook job interviews
Beyond checking your hard skills or technical knowledge, Meta also wants to know how you perform as a team player.
Typically, their software engineers work in cross-functional teams with other engineers, as well as profiles of designers, data analysts, product managers and more.
No one is on their own working in silos; they are a community of professionals working collaboratively aligned to the same goal.
To achieve synergy, aspiring software engineers at Meta must be:
-Able to communicate clearly
-Be able to work harmoniously and efficiently in a team environment.
-Be able to build trust in their work environment.
-Cultivate meaningful working relationships with their colleagues and acclimatise to the organisational culture.
-Able to communicate clearly, work optimally with each other, build trust and perform well, there must be synergy, and in order to be able to work well together, there must be a sense of belonging.
Meta Behavioural Interviews serve precisely to find out how well you work with others.
This is where you need to demonstrate that you focus more on the “we” than the “I” by giving verifiable examples of past situations in your former organisation that demonstrate your teamwork skills.
Ten frequently asked behavioural questions that Meta loves to ask:
-Tell us about yourself
-Why do you want to work at Meta?
-Tell me about a recent project or your favourite project and some difficulties you had.
-Tell me about the greatest driver you’ve had in your career.
-Tell me about a time when you had trouble working with one of your colleagues.
-Tell me about a time when you had to resolve a conflict as a team.
-Tell me about a time when you were given constructive feedback.
-Tell me about a time when you had to step up and take responsibility for others.
-Tell me about a time when you had problems with one of your software projects.
Tell me about your worst boss and why he/she was so bad.