Facebook phone screen

I wanted to provide feedback on Facebook phone screen.
Intro for 10 mins on Bluejeans video.
Was asked to solve a Leet code medium on coderpad.
I took first few minutes to understand the question.
I was always thinking out loud and communicating regularly what approaches are coming to my mind. I think this is most important to clear the interview. I initially communicated the brute force approach and then came up with efficient solution - explaining how you came to that solution is more important. I came up with a generic recurrence relation to solve the problem and made sure it would work by walking through different inputs.

Once we both were satisfied, I implemented the solution. Interviewer told me to walk through my code for 2-3 different inputs. I had missed an edge case - he provided a hint saying would it work for all edge cases which is when I identified it myself and was able to fix it. Also was asked time & space complexity which I walked through it and communicated.

I wanted to share this post for anyone interviewing at Facebook. Spend some time figuring out the ideal solution to the question. Don't jump too quickly into brute forcing the first solution that comes in mind. Think out aloud - just don't start coding because you have seen the question before. It's not important to solve 2 LC medium in 45 mins with most efficient solution. Whats important is how you tackle the problem, how you brainstorm different approaches and come up with an efficient solution, how well you discuss tradeoffs for each approach. I think thats what helped me clear the phone screening even though I solved only 1 LC medium.

I have 5-6 weeks to prepare for on-site. Anyone has any tips/recommendations how best to prepare for onsites would be appreciated!.

Position interviewing for was E5

Yoe: 8 years
TC: 270k
#engineering #software #facebook