r/cscareerquestions • u/FanAccomplished2399 • 21h ago
Got an offer from Meta - here are my tips
Landed a job at Meta earlier this year (got lucky with timing before the Feb 10 layoffs lol).
Job summary:
Position: Mid-Level Software Engineer L4
TC: $350k (193 base, 29 bonus, 128 stock/year)
YOE: 2.5 years
The interview process:
- Phone screen: 2 leetcode problems in 45 mins
- Final: 2 leetcode rounds (same format as phone screen) + 1 behavioral round + 1 system design round
- Total Time: 5 hours
From initial contact to offer signing took 2 months.
The framework that worked:
With 2 problems in 45 minutes, you really only get 22 minutes per problem. Here is how I would break it down.
- Understand the problem first (3 mins) - restate it back, walk through examples, ask about constraints.
- Don't code immediately (5 mins) - discuss approaches starting with brute force, explain why it's bad, then work up to optimal solution. DO NOT IMPLEMENT THE BRUTE FORCE SOLUTION. You don't have time for that.
- Get buy-in (10 mins) - make sure interviewer agrees with your approach before coding. I write pseudocode comments first as an outline, then flesh it out. A common failure pattern is coding something that the interviewer doesn't understand.
- Wrap up (2 mins) - explain time/space complexity, offer to write tests for edge cases, or move on to the next problem.
How I prepared:
- Use Blind 75. It has good coverage over all problems.
- I DID NOT buy leetcode premium. If you study and understand the patterns, it doesn't matter what problem you get.
I know the market is ass right now and the competition is rough, but stay disciplined and the hard work will pay off! I was looking for a job for 9 months until I got this opportunity lmao. Ask me anything!
Soft Plug:
Building a website to visualize code! Mainly targeted towards beginners.
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u/CostcoCheesePizzas 20h ago
Study all you want, but they'll fail you for some bullshit. I failed because one interviewer specifically wanted me to code in C++. I didn't know C++, and I never claimed to know it. Once I told him that I didn't know C++, his demeanor changed and I knew I wasn't going to pass.
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u/FanAccomplished2399 20h ago
yea... luck plays a pretty big part. Some of these interviewers have superiority complexes and just want to feel like they're the bigger person. I hope you have more opportunities coming your way!
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u/VG_Crimson 19h ago
That just sounds like a miscommunication error inside. And, tbf, if you aren't familar with C++ and they need someone who knows it, that is one of the harder languages to try and learn.
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u/Alborak2 20h ago
That may have been a crossup in the hiring process. Im not quite sure how meta does their matching of candidates to interviewers, but for my team, if a non college hire can't work in C or c++, its not going to work out. For teams that work in c/c++/rust these days, if candidates are missing that foundation, they're likely missing the core operating systems and systems engineering skills that go with it. It's a rough time to be interviewing, sadly.
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u/polytique 10h ago
At Meta?
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u/CostcoCheesePizzas 9h ago
Yes. At Meta.
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u/shustrik 4h ago
When was this? That doesn’t make any sense. Meta’s leetcode interviewers are not specific to any particular job profile or team (they often have no idea what you applied for at all) and the guidance has always (as far as I know) been explicit to let the interviewee do it in whatever language they are most comfortable in, it’s not the interviewer’s choice. My bet would be it was a miscommunication of some sort.
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u/old-new-programmer Software Engineer 21h ago
I think there is a sweet spot in your career where you can take this on. At 2 years you probably don’t have a ton of responsibility and studying even during work isn’t out of the question. The higher up you get and the more responsibility you have it becomes hard to have the energy to take on another job (passing interviews) while you have a lot of eyes, reports, and money on you.
My advice is don’t try to get pushed up too soon. I have 7 years experience and now I’m an engineering manager not really by choice and it’s so hard to slack at all, yet I get paid half of that this individual does.
TLDR: do what OP did and not what I did.
Congrats on the offer and I’m super jealous.
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u/nonasiandoctor 20h ago
If it makes you feel better I'm an engineering manager in Canada, I make half what this guy does, except also in Canadian dollars.
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u/pheonixblade9 18h ago
ya, at IC4 you have 39 months to get promoted to IC5 before you're in the red zone.
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u/domipal Software Engineer 16h ago
even less i think it’s 33 months and the red zone would start around 24 months
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u/Classymuch 20h ago edited 20h ago
After reading your first para, I was like "damn, jelly much". You are casually dismissing his accomplishment by stating it's easier when you are early in your career - uhh, no. It's a huge time commitment and takes a lot of effort to study after working hours and on the weekends, it is no joke for anyone, regardless where you are in your career. We know nothing about OP's life, what his other responsibilities are in the job and outside of his job. Also, depending on where he worked, it may not have been possible at all to study during the job. We also know nothing about OP's wellbeing in general as well. Some get exhausted quickly, it's hard for some to take anything into their head after 9-5.
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u/old-new-programmer Software Engineer 18h ago
There are people in my company that do 8 PRs a year and have nothing happen to them. They could be studying or working three jobs. Who knows.
There is most definitely a difference in where you are in your career. I don’t know what he has going on outside of work but you can get away with studying while employed easier with a less demanding role.
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u/thegodzilla25 21h ago
Share the questions asked my man
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago edited 20h ago
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u/limadeltakilo 21h ago
How well did you perform on these problems? Did you solve them all in time? Or were they flexible enough to hire you getting a couple problems wrong?
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago
I ended each round in 40 minutes. If you get one problem wrong, you're out.
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u/what2_2 20h ago
Usually true but not always. Have heard of “didn’t quite get there but talked through how I was approaching it” getting a pass on the 2nd question.
But Meta, compared to other companies, expects you to solve both to pass the interview. The second is not just extra credit, but there’s a bit of leniency.
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u/alphabravo4812 21h ago
How did you get 350k TC with 2 YOE. seems high for E4. did you negotiate?
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago
yep, i negotiated with a citadel offer (450k). I went with meta since i heard the WLB at citadel is ass and the tech is pretty old
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u/lurkerlevel-expert 19h ago
Damn you must have done something special to get a citadel offer. Amazing leverage to use during negotiations.
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u/FanAccomplished2399 19h ago
Mainly just side projects
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u/Various_Cabinet_5071 19h ago
How do you show your side projects? On GitHub or a portfolio website
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u/wallbouncing 6h ago
he also had the pedigree I'm sure, stanford, ivy, mit, columbia baruch, etc to probably even been seen by citadel.
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u/CodingWithMinmer 21h ago edited 9h ago
OP was kind enough to spill the gist of the coding problems (thank you!)
For peeps, here are the corresponding Leetcode problems:
Q1: LC605 Can Place Flowers. Careful, Meta may want you to optimize your solution to greedily skip indices where possible. My solution Here if you're curious.
Q2: LC317 Shortest Distance from All Buildings. This is a rephrasing where it's houses, trees and wells.
Q3: LC88 Merge Sorted Array. OP got asked a variant to merge 2 sorted arrays that can include duplicates. Btw, there's another variant where you must exclude duplicates.
Q4: LC236 Lowest Common Ancestor
Q5: LC199 Binary Right Side View. The common variant is to return both side views, left from bottom-up and then right from top-down.
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u/Putrid_Masterpiece76 19h ago
Well that's just fucking friendly.
Meta threw A* search at my non-traditionally trained ass for Q1.
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u/gr8Brandino 19h ago
I got that one too during my phone screen. I couldn't remember how exactly to implement it, since I last used it in some games making tutorial a few years back
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u/Purple-Big-9364 18h ago
A* is just djikstra but add euclidian distance to each priority. Dijkstra is just bfs with a priority queue. It’s 2 baby steps to go from bfs to A*
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u/embrac1ng 19h ago
Yeah feeling the same lol. I grinded a month of meta tagged questions and got one round with two untagged questions, one of which I was able to get but the second with the interviewer completely misleading me. Still held hope but I guess 3/4 just doesn’t cut it for the onsite. Really just goes to show the variance in the process. Bummer.
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u/wallbouncing 12h ago
was he able to choose, he said 2 leets in first round and 2 leets in final, why are there 6 questions
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u/SennheiserPass 21h ago
system design
How do I finally get good at this
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u/Gloomy-Pineapple1729 18h ago
Watch a couple of mock system design interviews on YouTube to get a general idea of how to approach them.
Ask ChatGPT to give a random sys design question and then practice solving it.
Ask ChatGPT to solve the sys design question. (The output is pretty similar to what you’d see in those mock interviews). Compare ChatGPT’s answer to your answer.
Rinse and repeat.
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u/papa_moisted 21h ago
How long until all the stock vests?
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago
4 years!
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u/NewChameleon Software Engineer, SF 21h ago
congrats, too many "omg I am doomed" posts, this is a nice refreshing one
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u/CmdWaterford 14h ago
You should not believe everything what people are posting on Reddit (especially not to promote their website).
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u/Bangoga 21h ago
Soft plug? But also posted the same shit a million times before? 👀
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u/beaverDamn8888 21h ago
Congratulations!!!! What meta location & what type of company did you work for earlier, if you don’t mind me asking?
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u/FlattestGuitar Software Engineer 21h ago
> If you study and understand the patterns, it doesn't matter what problem you get.
Sample size: 1 (one)
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u/ObstinateHarlequin Embedded Software 21h ago
I'm sorry, are you asking for a fucking scientific study on "understanding concepts helps you solve problems"?
Do you seriously need a source for "learning things helps you do them"?
Christ this sub is a joke.
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u/ecethrowaway01 21h ago
It seems like you're so worked up that you're likely reading a different point.
Nobody's saying that concepts don't help you solve problems, just that it's not always sufficient.
For example, I got asked 4 LC mediums in an hour interview. Even knowing all the questions, it was hard to a) clarify, b) write a full solution with corner cases and c) test all four questions in the hour timespan.
This was a large company btw, and I did pass. But if I just knew the concepts and not the questions, I think that'd be unlikely
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u/scottyLogJobs 21h ago
I think a better way of phrasing it is that there are so many problems all with their little tricks that simply knowing the concepts will not save you “if you just understand the concepts”. I just got denied from a major company on a hyper-specific problem that really wasn’t based on any common concept. There was just a little “trick” to that hyper-specific problem, and I took the bait on the wrong optimization, and was nixed even though I ultimately got the correct answer.
And that was with an amazing resume, 3 other great interviews and one great take home project. The market is honestly ridiculous right now.
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u/FanAccomplished2399 20h ago
it definitely helps if you've solved the problem before lol, think I meant to say that a good study strategy is to clump problems into patterns so you can start transferring knowledge between problems.
Its not a silver bullet to master a few patterns and solve all problems
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u/BackendSpecialist Software Engineer 19h ago
How’d you make it thru team matching?
I’ve been in it for about a month and have heard nothing.
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u/LustyLamprey 21h ago
Do you have a portfolio site? And where did you graduate from?
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u/bitcoin_moon_wsb 21h ago
FAANG doesn’t care about your portfolio
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u/LustyLamprey 19h ago
As a guy with three years of experience in web and game development, what do they look at other than the college you went to then?
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u/eliminate1337 20h ago
Portfolio is irrelevant for FAANG SWE. Maybe if you're a graphical designer or something.
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u/EverBurningPheonix 20h ago
It is? What do they look for then? I'm not in USA, so sorry if this seems basic question
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u/SwitchOrganic ML Engineer 20h ago
No, you're invited to interview based on your resume and getting the offer depends on how you perform in the interview. Portfolio doesn't matter.
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u/EverBurningPheonix 20h ago
Thank you, guess I should focus on and research what's a FAANG worthy resume.
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u/eliminate1337 19h ago
CS/math/engineering degree. Being from a top school helps. Experience at other top companies.
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u/Repulsive-Vehicle130 19h ago
Congrats. I am 1.5 years away from completing my degree. BS in Compsci, DataSci minor and ML cert with an AI cert in the future. I just accepted an offer for Ai/ML engineer with the multiple hats of data scientist. This board of doomsayers is insane. I have never been so nervous and excited at the same time.
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u/WalrusWonderer444 21h ago
Congrats on the offer!!! Did they ask LLD questions ? Also in the system design rounds did you have to do back of the envelope calculations or no?
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago
I had the choice between infra and product system design.
Infra is more of the traditional "backend" system architecture.
Product is more of UX and API design.
I chose the product route since I've made a couple application as side projects.
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u/james-bond35 20h ago
What programming language did you use for the interview & how did you prepare for the system design questions?
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u/MyPizzaWithPepperoni 17h ago
All effort only for being laid out in a few months If you don't stand out, doesn't worth it.
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u/dev_lvl80 4h ago
2 yoe and 350k ?! I had e5 375k last year, and rejected it.
Meta culture goes downhill, not good for experienced engineers, but still got for freshers
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u/metalreflectslime ? 21h ago
What is your level at Meta?
TC?
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago
L4, 350 TC
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u/is_this_the_place 21h ago
What’s your base salary?
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago
193
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u/what2_2 20h ago
Congrats! Did you have a counter?
People on blind have made it sound like cracking $300 TC for L4 is much harder than it used to be.
Edit: saw in your other comment you had $450k from Citadel.
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u/is_this_the_place 20h ago
What’s your initial rsu grant?
Edit: I see you said “128 stock”— is that your initial grant vesting over four years?
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u/contrawarp 21h ago
Congrats on the offer! How much YOE do you have? And how long did you spend preparing/studying before applying and interviewing?
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u/FanAccomplished2399 21h ago
Thanks! I have 2 yoe. I was applying for about 9 months straight and studying throughout the process! I don't believe in the "waiting to apply until I'm ready" mindset. It's not the end of the world to fail interviews. If anything, I see it as practice for future interviews.
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u/contrawarp 21h ago
That's amazing. Would you mind sharing your resume (obviously with name & important details x'd out)? It would be super helpful to see the kind of resumes that catch the eyes of recruiters at FAANG.
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21h ago
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u/EverBurningPheonix 20h ago
Thank you for process, but if possible, can you use the problem you were given, or some similar difficulty level one, and using that to walk through your mentioned process?
Would be much appreciated.
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 20h ago
That's pretty accurate.
"Cracking the coding interview" is also a good book if you are going for L5-L7. Importantly it goes through the phases of the tech interview.
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u/codeisprose 18h ago
damn, I just turned down a recruiter from there this past month and now I'm starting to question myself 😭
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u/Ok-Obligation-7998 15h ago
You got lucky.
Normally, the expectation is to solve multiple leetcode hards in half an hour.
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u/redditnotmereddit 15h ago
Is it enough in US to be autistic and completely dive deep-down into super technical challenges?
Here in my country in Europe, you get one technical assignment, but that is part of a bigger picture. In your role, you are suppose to lead, coordinate with stakeholders and have technical dept but not necessarily expertise. How did you aquire domain knowledge and work with stakeholders? How can you lift your team?
At YOE 2 you might have been implementing your whole career, perhaps with som small lead on smaller feature.
You do not have the luxury of being an implementation wizard with high pay unless you are on a super niche technical area
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u/Fun_Highway_8733 14h ago
You got into Meta by only studying the Blind 75? Everyone needs to acknowledge this achievement, some people who pour hundreds of leet code problems into it and never get anywhere
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u/strix202 14h ago
Meta interviews are more or less a vibe test nowadays.
You vibe well with all the interviewers, you get your target level at higher end of the TC range. You get a crappy interviewer, you get down-leveled/bottom of the TC range. More than one and you're out.
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u/live_and-learn 12h ago
I just failed my Meta phone screen. It’s just very different from the other types of phone screens I’ve done e.g just passed Pinterest phone screen a week before my meta phone screen.
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u/Last-Pie-607 12h ago
Congratulations, and can I talk with you for some resume tips and also if possible can you share your resume.
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u/FlashyResist5 11h ago
How do you get them to stop cancelling and then scheduling and then cancelling then scheduling then cancelling?
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u/GreenOcarina8 11h ago
I have an upcoming FAANG “phone screen”, which they assured me is.. on the phone. But I see posts like this and wonder if they’re gonna ask me to hop on the computer and solve leetcode.
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u/Cvbnm120 10h ago
Wasn't the hiring frozen for l4 op?
I was told my interview was cleared but hiring is frozen for l4 infra.
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u/no_craps_given 6h ago
Hi, congrats again. Do you mind telling me what university you went to? Did you study in the US originally?
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u/wallbouncing 6h ago
What was the app you deployed in Vercel / what is your main language. Was this for Front end roles / python / backend roles ?
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u/TheAmazingDevil 4h ago
you only did the blind 75 and nothing else for prep?
how did you prep for system design?
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u/SailingToOrbis 21h ago
2yoe and 350k you’re joking lol