To everyone who’s interviewing, Over the last few weeks I’ve received messages to share interview experiences for Amazon/ TikTok/ Meta. So here’s a post to summarize all of that. Amazon L5: 1. Applied using a referral 2. Phone screen and then onsite loop. 3. 4 onsite rounds in total 4. Round 1-3: coding + leadership principles 5. Round 4: HM round, leadership principles + system design (web crawler like questions) 6. Took 2 days for the offer result. Coding questions for Amazon were easy - medium level questions but were a bit complex worded. For ex., a question was to design a package delivery management system with dependencies, which reduces to writing an algorithm to finding a cycle in a directed graph. So communication here is vital to figure out what exactly you’re solving. Being a fast coder is useful in these rounds as questions around the leadership principles can take up quite sometime to start with (25-30mins) Preparation: 1. Coding: Leetcode (grind 75), Amazon tagged mediums 2. OOD: system design primer questions 3. System design: Alex Xu’s books 4. Leadership principles: LPs worksheet, writing down real life experiences using STAR format for each of the LP. This was useful for other behavioral interviews as well. Meta E4 1. Applied using a referral 2. Software Engineer, Infrastructure loop 3. 1 phone screen: 2 Leetcode questions, 1 medium, 1 hard. Finished both in 45 mins. Had a hint from the interviewer for the second question. 4. On-site had 2 coding, 1 design, 1 behavioral 5. Coding rounds: 2 Leetcode questions in 45 mins. These rounds were flawless. 6. Behavioral: standard questions around collaboration, projects, leadership, conflicts. The Amazon prep helped. 7. System design: designing a scalable backend service for a data aggregation system. 8. Bombed the first system design interview so had a follow up. The follow up went just average too. Was only able to do a HLD and some discussions around scale. 9. The coding and behavioral rounds went pretty well so maybe that helped get an offer. 10. 2 days after onsite to get the result. The recruiter was mindful of my deadlines. Preparation: 1. Leetcode FB tagged, questions can be directly from this list sometimes. 2. Alex Xu Vol 1-2 books. Grokking the system design interview pdf. I was asked a question directly out of this in my second round. 3. Behavioral: STAR format, multiple examples for a situation. Be prepared to dive deep into the situations. ByteDance 2-1: 1. Applied through a recruiter who reached out on LinkedIn. 2. Round 1: coding + resume discussion; wasn’t able to fully execute the code but arrived at a solution after good discussion. Could have gone better. 3. Round 2: system design + coding. Easy questions for both. TinyUrl + a two pointer question. 4. Round 3: system design. medium level question. Similar to design the liking system on a TikTok video. 5. Round 4: HM round with mostly behavioral and technical discussions. 6. Offer came by in 2-3 days after the final round. Preparation: 1. Haven’t specifically prepared for ByteDance interviews. But Meta and Amazon prep helped. 2. I’d recommend going through resume well and deep dive into tech for HM interview. General interviewing tips: 1. Communicate, speak your minds out. 2. Wear a good smile and be your best self. Most interviews are about finding good fits to work with and not the best skilled people. 3. Listen properly, the interviewer knows the solution and is dropping hints to navigate you around. 4. Keep checking on the interviewer if they’re following you and get their buy ins periodically. General coding tips: 1. Time box the coding practice. 2. Maintain regularity for speed. I did the leetcode daily challenges and contests for variety and new questions. 3. Grind 75/169 list is a good combination for wide range of patterns. 4. Do mocks with friends/ experts. This helps practice speaking as well. 5. Meta offers mock interviews prior to the on-site loop. 6. Do Leetcode weekly contests, helped track progress. General system design tips: 1. Read as many case studies as possible before to identity patterns. 2. Alex Xu vol1/2 is all I’ve done. If absorbed well it seems like a good reference. Interviewers seemed to mainly use “Grokking the system design interview” pdf. So that’s another useful reference. 3. Start early, design thinking takes time. I wish I’d done that. 4. Do as many mocks as possible and use Excalidraw like tools. Negotiation tips: 1. Nothing beats the leverage of a competing offer. 2. If you don’t have a competing offer, use your poker skills, but be willing to walk out if you’re not getting a good deal. 3. In my case, all I had to do was to tell Meta and TikTok about each other and Amazon’s offer. The recruiter did the rest of the job. 4. Let the recruiter know about your deadlines, they want to onboard you. All the best, you got this! 🚀 AMA, happy to reply on the post! Check my other posts: https://www.teamblind.com/us/s/VDc0zwer https://www.teamblind.com/us/s/EBzqeV3d https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/4139737/Meta-E4-Interview-Experience-or-Seattle/ TC: 185k -> 300+ YoE: 4
Another quality post and this is why i don’t delete blind. Congrats OP and thanks for sharing it with the community!
This
Dude awesome. For meta did they ask as is from leetcode or do they make changes in questions but logic is similar. Also please dont take tiktok if you aren’t chinese
Would it be wise to wait for an i140 approval, since my prem has been filed and then make a switch in about a year, or grind hard for the next 3-4 months and give big tech a shot?
That’s a personal choice. Perm def needs to be prioritized
Hi Op. For Meta follow up system design interview, when did you hear about it?
2 days after the interviews
Thanks Op
@sp3781 hey, you mentioned for meta you bombed system design but you had a follow up? They allowed you to take the interview again? How does that work?
The recruiter asked if I can do a round since they wanted an additional signal. I think this happens if all other rounds are strong hire/ hire and one of them is a no hire.
Hey I recently got e4 offer (team matching so no numbers) and im also interviewing for amazon and byte dance. Could I ask you for some tips on the negotiation? Thx!
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Congratulations on the offers OP 👏🏼, thank you for sharing your experience!
Happy to help!