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Technical interview preparation notebook
January 23, 2018
It was when I first received an email from a Facebook Recruiter with the title, Facebook. I’ve applied to Facebook and numerous Silicon Valley tech companies a few months before, sending in large amount of resumes with zero cover letters. Not just Silicon Valley, even to London, Ireland etc. Back to the email, I was asked a series of questions, at first I thought this was just another Facebook notification email or something!
3. Just to confirm would you be interested in an internship based in London?
Surprisingly, it was actually from Facebook London for the Solutions Engineer position! Skipping over a few email exchanges, I’ve gotten myself an initial phone screening interview, it was fine tho. I was asked questions that were related to “WHY”…
After that comes the hard part, the technical interview itself. Do you wanna know why its hard? I’ve never taken an algorithm analysis and Data structure courses before, should I blame myself for not knowing it, maybe, or should blame the university for not teaching it, also MAYBE.
Details:
Date & Time: Tue, Feb 13, 2018 03:00 PM Pacific Time
Damn! So I had around 2 weeks-ish to prepare for the technical interview. Wanna know something funny? I have a trip to Thailand with my buddies on 28th of January to 2nd of February, think about that! The interview was sandwiched between my trip and the Chinese Lunar New Year! I knew I was rekted. I knew I have to start somewhere, so from the 25th of January on-wards, I forced myself to study Algorithm Analysis (Big O) and Data Structure every single day. I got myself books on those topics, got onto different practicing websites including Youtube, leetcode, hackerrank etc. Shout-out to CS Dojo, MIT Opencourse, CS50 and many more technical questions videos!
Before heading to the club
I was studying on the bus to Genting Highland with my bro, Peter. I was doing a mock interview on Pramp before heading out to the airport for Thailand. I was studying on the plane. I was studying every single night while I was in Bangkok. I was even studying even before heading to the club. Insane right? Learning from scratch, understanding Big O in few days! Wherever I go, I must have my Ipad, pen and my notebooks with me.
Thankful for the Facebook Recruitment Team
The Facebook Recruitment Team were some of the nicest, friendliest and most loving people on Earth, like literally! I was given tons of resources like guides from Gayle Laakmaan from Cracking the Coding Interview, websites, and some of the stuff that I couldn’t talk about here, including topics on Sneakers, Grammy Rap album of the year and stuffs. But I can assure you, they truly wanted you to pass this interview because its not just about the interview, its about working with passionate people. That is why I love working with passionate individuals. My passion has always been:
Building great products and companies with passionate people
Here’s my explanation for “Why Facebook and my passion”: A product is only great if it brings impact, change, social values and empower its users, for example to build communities and bringing everyone closer together. Only a group of passionate people can build great products. If I did make it to Facebook, I am not representing myself, I am representing the next generation of young Malaysian, to bring impact to their lives as it shows the fact that everything is possible as long as you are passionate about it, we just have to be bold, we’ll never learn if we didn’t try.
Enough of that, let’s get back to the “experience”
So, days has passed, the technical interview was getting nearer. The technical interview was on 14 February at 6 am “Malaysian Time”, if not mistaken. Still studying everyday but I felt like I sort of get-the-hang-of it.
The Interview
I slept early the day before, making sure that I get enough sleep. Woke up, bathed and sat in front of my laptop. The interview was scheduled to be on something called Bluejeans with a Software Engineer from Menlo Park. Lets call the interview Jay. Like what I said before, Jay was so so so nice, we introduced each other with questions like “Tell me about yourself”. The fact that the interview wasn’t as awkward as I though it would be proves that working at Facebook should be hella lot fun! I was given a question to be completed within an hour through coderpad with time and space complexity considered.
I cant remember the question but it was similar to the DP: Coin Change. Unfortunately, I only managed to come up with the brute force solution which runs at big O(n²), a big NO-NO! Jay helped me throughout the entire interview, it doesn’t felt like an interview at all, it felt like I am working with Jay to solve this freaking problem. Collaboration kinda feels.
Conclusion: Candide
I failed. But it felt good. It felt like I’ve truly learnt something that not many could. It felt like climbing Mount Everest to reach the base camp but not the peak, but because of that experience, you are able to climb other mountains with ease. Its like doing something so hard that everything else seems so easy. I gotta accept the fact that, what’s the possibility of me passing this interview when I just started learning about the necessary stuffs two weeks ago HAHA, VERY STOIC-ish. Felt like Seneca myself.
From the book Candide by Voltaire:
Pangloss sometimes said to Candide:
“There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunégonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbéd the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”
“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”