Has anyone ever nailed Facebook code screening for Frontend at Staff level without reference?
Appeared for FB coding round (telephonic, Bluejeans, whatever you call it) screen twice and solved the problems both time. Unlike other companies, theirs is strictly focused on Algorithms even if you use JavaScript - no HTML, CSS and accessible-tags stuffz (or things you can learn overnight). I had practiced a lot, basically the whole Google/FB/Palantir algorithmic suite available on the web.
I solved for optimization, took edge cases, improved time complexity and space complexity, and the solution also worked. Interviewer looked happy and satisfied. He talked about one edge case that solution was not covering but then discovered that I already took care of it, which he appreciated. He was expecting worst case O(Mxn) - M being very small, ranging from 1-3, but I actually gave him worst case O(n)
I still got rejected. Exact same thing happened earlier too where my solution was efficient and working. I understand every company has their own standards, but at LinkedIn both solutions would have been a go, even for Staff level. In fact a variation of one of them is registered within our CA for UI module with exactly similar solution.
So it might seem this is just my dissatisfaction speaking, but I wanted to know if any frontend candidate has made it to FB without reference/recommendations like I was trying? Or is there something weirdly different about FB coding screens?
As usual, no improvement scope feedback from HR
comments
Used telephonic as we use TPS (telephonic phone screen) as short form at LinkedIn for our Bluejeans interviews.
Another hypothesis is you might have implemented a solution that optimized for worst-case but isn’t optimal for best-case.
There could be endless explanations. Maybe you didn’t communicate your thoughts clearly. Maybe the interviewer figured out that you already knew the question. Maybe they were expecting you to finish the question quickly and answer another one....
Last possibility is your interviewer could’ve been an ass hole.
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