Tech IndustryNov 16, 2019

Facebook Onsite Experience

Had my Facebook Onsite today. Position interviewed for : E5. 1st round: Behavioral + coding - For the most part the interviewer only asked behavioral questions related to my past experience and projects. We had a good conversation on each topic and he built follow up questions based on the answers I gave. The time flew by and in the last 3 minutes, he opened up the platform for me to ask question. Overall I felt that this round went well but I am not 100% confident since he didn't ask any coding question on this round. Is there an expectation to definitely do coding on this round? 2nd round: Product design - The interviewer gave the problem statement (mainstream product that we use very often) and asked to design end-to-end flow for it. I started with functional requirements, capacity estimation and moved on to API and component design. The interviewer pretty much agreed to whatever I said and considering the time in mind, she asked me to drive the discussion in a specific direction and around caches, security etc. I think she was looking to see if I am covering all the key characteristics of distributed system. I was able to proceed in the direction she wanted and answered all the follow up questions. Overall I felt that it went well and the interviewer also mentioned that it went good. 3rd round: Coding - The interviewer mentioned that he is going to ask only 1 question and its a LC hard I haven't seen before. I started the problem by discussing all the possible types of input cases and proposed a recursion solution. I made a small mistake with time complexity but interviewer gave me a different input and I found the correct time complexity using that input. With implementation, I made a small mistake with the recursive call and as the interviewer pointed that out, I was able to fix that as well. At the end, he gave thumbs up for the solution but there is definitely room for improving this solution by memozing it etc. In the last few mins I mentioned that we could improve this solution but I didn't have time to do it. Overall I think it went OK (I was able to solve) but not great. 4th round: Coding - He gave a LC medium problem I haven't seen before. I discussed the problem with different inputs and came up with a solution but I think he is not convinced much with my solution. For most of the time he was trying to break my solution with different inputs and my solution was working for all the inputs. I also tried my best to help him with the inputs but my solution was working for that as well. We are already 30 mins into the interview and I haven't coded yet. Finally, he said OK for my solution and I gave the time complexity and I coded it in the last 8 mins. I was able to solve but had I got some more time to code, I would've written a much cleaner code. I was also not sure if he had another question in mind as the first one was LC medium and I also think he took a lot of time to understand how I am approaching the problem and didn't let me code until the very end. Is this something I should convey to my recruited just in case this round becomes a bad sign? 5 round: Coding - The recruiter said that its a calibration round for the interviewer and most likely will not be considered for evaluation. It's a LC hard and I have seen a similar version of it but its a lot of code to write. I explained my approach, coded it for most part of my interview and ran test cases with it and discussed time complexity. Overall it went great and we are right on time. (It's a bummer for me that this round will not be considered for evaluation). What are your thoughts on each round in regards to how it went and what are my chances?

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Quora WalU80 Nov 16, 2019

U need to do more leetcode for facebook.

JPMorgan Chase oooppp Nov 16, 2019

Sounds good moving to offer

Juniper Av^vA Nov 16, 2019

Looks like he is just at or below the bar.

Facebook mturtle Nov 16, 2019

It's really hard to give you a real answer to "what are my chances"...just hang in there. You will find out from recruiter In response to your question about interview (4). It never helps to reach out to a recruiter to explain a problem with the interviewer. It may hurt. Sometimes interviewers are in a bad mood, and you wont do well no matter what; it happens, so just chalk it up to bad luck.

Goldman Sachs baburao1 Nov 16, 2019

Did you complete all fb tagged questions ? As you are mentioning that they were LC problems but you haven't seen them before.

Microsoft knsan OP Nov 16, 2019

I didn't complete all of them but later figured out that 2 of them are Fb tagged ones.

Google cloudy sky Nov 17, 2019

Seems strange that it was so different from my on-site experience for E5: 2 coding interviews with no 3rd for calibration, both had 2 questions. My behavioral ended in a coding question. One system design but got called back for one more design question the following week (tbh I think my first wasn’t great). So mine was 4 rounds total on day 1, plus one a week later before FB made E5 offer. Good luck!

JPMorgan Chase oooppp Nov 17, 2019

Congrats!!

Cisco ($:_73(;# Nov 17, 2019

I got a follow-up coding and system design request. :(

Microsoft knsan OP Nov 17, 2019

I would take a follow up anyday instead of reject. Good luck on that. Would you mind sharing your interview experience? What you think went wrong that initiated a follow up?

Cisco ($:_73(;# Nov 17, 2019

Thanks! I had pretty much same experience. No coding after behavior. That and one coding went well. Rest, we pretty much ran out of time. They knew I could have kept going on both in design (more depth I think) and coding (more testing). Anyway I am brushing up my leet skills now. Looks like yours might have been better because of clear direction from interviewers in design. So fingers crossed for you!

Goldman Sachs baburao1 Nov 20, 2019

OP did you hear back from fb?

Deloitte dhs719 Jun 23, 2021

Any updates on results OP ?