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Software Engineer Interview Experience - Palo Alto, California

October 1, 2010
Neutral ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I had on-campus interviews in the spring and then decided to interview for full-time positions in the fall.

I had three interviews: the first went very well, the second was terrible, and the third was alright.

The terrible interviewer asked some basic technical questions involving writing code on the board. As I thought out loud, I asked the interviewer clarification questions and then ultimately asked whether I should start writing code on the board. The interviewer either did not respond to my questions or mumbled a few incomprehensible words.

I started writing code, and as soon as I stepped back from the board, the interviewer pointed out my mistake without giving me a chance to assess the code myself. He did this two more times for subsequent questions.

Overall, the questions were not difficult at all. It seems that Facebook wants to ensure that you code frequently enough that you do not make any errors on your first attempt at a problem. This seems to fit the "go fast and break things" motto.

Although things didn't work out for me, I got an offer from Google, so I guess that's not a bad second choice.

Questions

Basic string operations, trees, and sorting.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 78 interview experiences for the Meta Software Engineer role in Palo Alto, California.

Success Rate

13%
Pass Rate

Meta's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Palo Alto, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive44%
Neutral36%
Negative21%

Candidates reported having good feelings for Meta's Software Engineer interview process in Palo Alto, California.

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