meta | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified
Interview Process
I had a technical phone screen with Meta. The interviewer started off by asking me to introduce myself and discuss my background briefly. After that, I was asked to solve a problem regarding calculating the size of an island in a 2D grid.
The problem statement was as follows: Given a 2D grid of '1’s (land) and '0’s (water), return the size of the largest island. An island is surrounded by water and is formed by connecting adjacent lands horizontally or vertically. You may assume the grid’s rectangular shape and that there are no diagonal connections.
Initially, I was a bit hesitant because the problem seemed straightforward, yet I realized it required careful consideration of edge cases, like single '1’s or fully enclosed '0’s. The interviewer encouraged me to think out loud while I worked through the solution.
I started with a depth-first search (DFS) approach to traverse the grid and keep track of visited cells. After implementing the DFS method, I noticed some inefficiencies in terms of space complexity since I was using a separate visited array. The interviewer prompted me to consider in-place alterations to the grid to save space.
At the end of the interview, the interviewer seemed satisfied with my approach and encouraged me to follow up with questions about the company culture and team dynamics. Overall, I felt good about my performance, but I am still waiting to hear back on the outcome.
Technical Questions
- Island Size Calculation (DFS, Graph, BFS)
Tips & Insights
- Think out loud during problem-solving to engage the interviewer.
- Consider edge cases carefully.
- Explore optimization opportunities, such as in-place modifications to data structures.