Question

Facebook | Meta | MLE E5 (London) | Interview Experiences | Set-5 | 2022

Answer 1

Hi all,

 

Before the hiring freeze, I started interviewing for the MLE E5 position. After my phone coding interview and before the onsite interview, the freeze happened, but my recruiter told me if I passed, I would be first on the queue once this position opened again.

 

Overall, I had a good experience with the recruiter and the interview process but not the final feedback. Unfortunately, I can't share the exact questions due to the NDA.

 

1.  

   Coding Phone Interview: solved both problems with optimal time/space complexity and went through a detailed discussion before starting coding. The questions were in the top 100 most frequently tagged questions or a variant of these questions. The problems were medium-level problems.

    

2.  

   Onsite:
   a) 2 Coding rounds: solved all problems with optimal time/space complexity and went through a detailed discussion before starting coding. In addition, I answered all the bonus questions. The questions were in the top 100 most frequently tagged questions or a variant of these questions. Three problems were medium-level problems, and one was a variation of a hard-level problem.
   Feedback: Perfect positive feedback.
   b) MLE interview: one problem for one of the meta products.
   Feedback: passed E5 bar.
   c) System Design interview: designing a specific feature for one of the meta products.
   Feedback: E4, because I didn't make a comparison between different solutions.
   d) Behavioural interview: Normal questions regarding my experience with a specific focus on situations.
   Feedback: E4, because the interviewer didn't understand one of the situations I explained.

    

 

What frustrates me is:

 

1. Why didn't the behavioral round interviewer ask me to provide more details if something was unclear to him/her?
2. I told my recruiter that I provided more than one solution for the system design interview, and I discussed the pros and cons of each one and why I would choose one of them as the solution. The comparison did happen in-depth, but his/her reply was vague "they down-leveled me for all overall performance".
3. I asked if I could do a single follow-up round for the behavioral round, as he/she said ML design is more important than system design for the MLE roles. Still, he/she said follow-up rounds only happen when there is a technical issue during the interview. It is strange because this is not what I read on blind and LC.

 

Overall, It was a rejection with a cool-down period of 6 months, if the freeze is over, I could re-apply again, but I will go to the final round directly.

 

I hope this helps you, as LC did help me a lot with the preparation.