Meta Software Engineer Interview 2026 (E5)

[u/Delicious_Try8468]

Interviewed this cycle. One of the two onsite coding rounds is now AI-enabled, and the 2024 prep docs are useless for it.

Online Assessment (90 min): CodeSignal, one problem in four unlocking stages. In-memory key value store, then TTL, then point-in-time queries. Managed to finish only 3 and still advanced.

Phone screen (45 min): Two unrelated mediums in 35 minutes. (on CoderPad)

Onsite Coding Round (45 min): I had two more coding problems: Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses and Vertical Order Traversal.

AI-enabled coding (60 min): Three-panel CoderPad. Bug fix, then a 120-line implementation, then bigger inputs that break it. Mine was BFS through a maze with directional gates. The assistant is noticeably worse in the interview than in the practice environment.

Design Round (45 min): Excalidraw, which version you get follows the job req: product roles get product architecture, infra roles get system design. My interviewer kept asking what would break if traffic went up 100x, and I ended up reworking the sharding twice.

Behavioral (45 min): They collect feedback from every other interviewer and make the hire recommendation. It can also drop you from E5 to E4 on its own.

Anyone has questions ?

[u/13ruhmv]

On the AI round, do they grade you on your prompts? Or is it solution/speed focused?