Preparation

DSA Preparation

Make sure to go through at least the top 150 frequently asked META questions on LeetCode. If you feel even slightly stuck on a problem, revisit and practice it again. Personally, I found the second DSA round to be time-constrained, even though I had seen similar problems before. Practicing them just once wasn’t enough — repeated practice would’ve made my execution smoother.

At META, you are not expected to build your solution from brute force to optimal step-by-step. Instead, directly present the best solution you can think of. Always mention time and space complexity without being prompted. For example, you can say upfront: “I’m thinking of an O(N) solution.”

They also expect you to dry run your code on sample test cases. Since you’re expected to explain your logic, write code, and dry run for two questions within 35 minutes, the round tests your recall speed more than raw problem-solving ability.
Realizing this helped me shape my preparation strategy effectively.

System Design Preparation

Through my experience, I think following this sequence can help you introduce structure to your system design preparation:

1. Start with Chapter 1 of System Design Interview – Volume 1 by Alex Xu.

2. Move to HelloInterview and go through all the free (unlocked) problems:

   • First, just read each problem like a story.
   • On the second pass, try to grasp the high-level structure.
   • On the third pass, sit with pen and paper, attempt the design yourself, then fill in gaps.
   • Iterate through problems multiple times — you'll notice your designs improving.
   • Use ChatGPT to validate your approach (if you are not going with the HelloInterview solutions blindly).
   • Identify and note down recurring patterns across designs.

3. Once you're comfortable, go through the complete System Design Interview books by Alex Xu.

4. I also looked at JordanHasNoLife’s videos — they are useful, but keep in mind that his approach may lack the breadth expected of an IC4 at META. At this level, breadth of knowledge is more important than depth in any one area.

5. If you can, consider purchasing HelloInterview’s premium version (~$40) for more practice problems.

6. Practice your designs on Excalidraw.com to become comfortable with diagramming tools.

7. During the actual interview, focus on completing the “bad design” first and aim for 2–3 deep dives. Push through the first 5–10 minutes quickly — if you get stuck early, you might not even complete the basic design, which is crucial.

Interview Loop

Phone Screening

Round 1 - DSA

Building with ocean view
Shortest Bridge

Round 2 - DSA

Binary Tree Vertical Order Traversal
Shortest Distance from All Buildings

Note - This I feel was a very lengthy round in terms of the length of the problems. I was able to make it but the pointer to the readers is that though you fumble in one of the rounds, it is okay. Do not beat yourself after the interview because you never know what other things the panels are evaluating you on. META unlike Amazon has better calibrated interviewers.

Round 3 - Behavioural

Standard behavioural question

Round 4 - System Design

Real-time gaming leaderboard

Some important LeetCode post links -

1. https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/6459174/meta-recently-asked-product-architecture-kc19/
2. Consider searching other posts to see frequently asked system design questions that have been asked in the past.

Hope this helps anyone preparing for META interviews!

Update - My recruiter told me that I cleared the interviews and I am currently in the team matching phase!