Phone Screen:
In Phone Screen round, 2 coding questions were asked to be completed in 40-45 min.
In one of the question, I was trying to g for most optimised approach, but interviewer is happy with semi-optimised approach as well, therefore discussions during interview is important 😅.
Virtual Onsite Rounds:
1. System Design Round:
Was asked to tackle a very specific High-Level design problem in 40-45 min, I think I got the logic right but as I was preparing these type of questions on a very generic level, like the ones we used to see on youtube, blogs etc. so I guess I am not very structured in my answer when the question is about the very particular problem, not a general design a system question. Although, interviewer looks satisfied with the approach, but sadly in the feedback, it was mentioned that I failed this round.
I expected that I had done pretty well in this to pass it😅.
2. Behavioural Round:
This was the normal behavioural round where they tend to know in around 40-45 min whether you culturally fits into facebook.
3. First Coding Round:
Again 2 Coding Questions were asked in around 40-45 min , level was slightly up than the phone screen round. It went pretty smooth for me, and I successfully passed it too.
4. Second Coding Round:
Similar as First Coding Round, but this time my experience was not that good, I was pretty confident that I proposed the best solution for the first question, but I guess interviewer found little hard to understand my approach, he asked to explain it multiple times through different examples and then asked to implement it and I though he sounds satisfied with the approach at the end, he asked me to come with some of the test cases but he didn't propose any test case from his side where my approach could fail, in all these I lost around 30 min in the allotted 45 min, interviewer quickly jumps to second question (I guess, there is some unsaid rule in FB coding rounds where interviewer has to ask 2 coding questions), in second question too thought I came up with the optimised sol. after some healthy discussions with the interviewer, but he again asked to optimise it more, at last as time was running out, he asked to implement the solution, I guess not even 5 minutes are left and I had to implement the complete solution, as expected my solution remained incomplete. At last, I asked the interviewer what could be the more optimised approach than this for the 2 question, he told an approach, I didn't argue then but on analysing his approach afterwards, I think it is not optimising the solution in any better way.
Although I expected that I can pass the second coding round too as I came up with the sol. for first question and my approach was somewhat correct for second question too (that's why interviewer asked to implement it), but it was not the case, as I failed the second coding round.
I had the feeling that in my second coding round, interviewer was kind of reluctant for the approaches he had in his mind, although I don't know, I might be wrong.
Anyways, I was confident in my approaches and I cross-checked them too over the web after the interviews.
Learnings
For Facebook, focus more on System Design skills, in coding rounds approach and the way of thinking counts less, what counts is your solution, and that too in some cases the solution which interviewer is expecting😅.Try to come up with perfect solution for both the questions in the coding rounds within the allotted time.
One should generally discuss the approach while implementing solutions, but this could also depend upon type of interviewer, some may wants you do the work silently for some time and then discuss the approach.
Coding questions were not of that level where most optimised solution will be difficult to come up with, it can be cracked with some thinking and sometimes with healthy discussions with the interviewer, but again, I felt in Facebook interviews, time is a major factor, you have to come up with complete solution for both questions in the given time, and in the process of coming up with sol., also discuss the approach and the complexities.