u/michaelnovati replied ·
Feel free to DM me more about your personal circumstances. I did over 400 interviews at Meta between 2009 and 2017 and helped create the product architecture variant.
Do not feel ready at all for System Design interview
5 of Michael's comments in this thread · View thread on Reddit ↗
u/forestryfowls wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Are there any example interviews for the product architecture variant specifically? I have an E5 interview coming up but I wasn’t sure if the Jordan has no life videos are more product or system level
u/michaelnovati replied ·
They are similar questions but will focus more in product use cases, whereas 'system design' asks more napkin math and intense questions on scaling the backend.
"Design Instagram"
Product: focused on APIs, high level block diagram, supporting web and mobile clients (and differences needed)
Systems: focused on scaling photo storage, performance of feed and optimizations to get the best performance, etc...
u/JessieKnowsBestie wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi! Can you give more specific examples of what the product architecture questions are like? I’m so confused as to what is expected. Can you list specific problems, follow up, deep dives etc required?
u/michaelnovati replied ·
It's the same questions! The discussion is just more full stack, focusing on client use cases, i.e. an API tier for mobile vs desktop, etc...
Whereas the system one is more focused on the backend of the problem
u/JessieKnowsBestie wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
That sucks so much =\ I’m a specialist interviewing, and I know fuck all about front end web dev. I almost wish I had gotten the vanilla system design because at least there’s material to prep online. But just hearing by you say “mobile vs desktop api” tells me that I’m gonna bo
u/michaelnovati replied ·
What kind of specialist are you? The "product architecture" is best described as "full stack system design". They have frontend specializations that is SUPER frontend and they have iOS and other specailizations.
If you are really concerned talk openly to the recruiter about it, they WANT to get you in the right spot!
u/JessieKnowsBestie wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I’m a video game developer going to Reality Labs. So I have 6 interviews. 2 are domain specific for my specialty. The other 4 are product architecture, 2x code and behaviour. My recruiter says that there is less emphasis for me to perform super well in the prod architecture. But
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Meta (and a couple of other top tier companies) have really rigid and standardized interview processes so that they can be the most calibrated possible and make sure that the bar is consistent across the company and also be the most fair possible so that you get the most consistent experience.
My biggest advice is to work with the recruiter because they're on your side to try to help you get an offer and they will be more than willing to help