Meta | Onsite | Software Engineer E4 | Offer

Behavioral

Questions: Specific question not provided.

• Usual questions included "Tell me about a time you received feedback."

Candidate's Approach

Updated a document with newer stories from past experiences.

Interviewer's Feedback

No feedback provided.

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Coding 1

Questions:

1. 23. Merge k Sorted Lists

   • Implement a class that receives k sorted lists (array lists, not linked lists) in the constructor, with a method next() that returns the next smallest number of all the lists.

2. 146. LRU Cache

   • Discussed when the recency should be updated on both get() and put().

Candidate's Approach

• Proposed a heap solution for the first problem and took time to correct a few bugs.
• For the LRU Cache, suggested using a simple linked list and discussed the implications of updating recency on both methods.

Interviewer's Feedback

The interviewer seemed to appreciate the questions asked during the LRU Cache discussion.

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Coding 2

Questions:

1. 215. Kth Largest Element in an Array

   • Proposed a heap solution after discussing quickselect.

2. 1570. Dot Product of Two Sparse Vectors

   • Proposed storing indices of non-zero elements.

Candidate's Approach

• Started with a heap solution for the Kth Largest Element and completed it.
• Coded the Dot Product problem without follow-up questions from LeetCode.

Interviewer's Feedback

The interviewer enjoyed the discussions and questions posed by the candidate.

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System design

Questions:

1. Design Instagram
   • Focused on posting and following, with an emphasis on backend requirements.

Candidate's Approach

Identified requirements and managed to follow up correctly despite missing some initial points.

Interviewer's Feedback

No feedback provided.

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Conclusions

• The candidate felt they could have performed better on the system design but believed it was good enough.
• Received confirmation that an offer is forthcoming.