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✅ Design Privacy Settings At Facebook | System Design Interview (Pirate Round) 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 17:11:43 +0000

User Privacy has been a critical topic currently for most tech companies.

On Facebook, you may have noticed that you can set different privacy levels for the posts you publish so that they are only visible to a specific set of users like Public, Friends, Friends of friends, etc.

Key Features

The privacy implementation design can be fairly complex, so we will limit it to a few core features that can be covered in a 45-minute interview round. In this question, you will be asked to develop the backend of a system with the following key features:

Enable a user to specify the different levels of privacy for a post so that it is only visible to a particular set of users on Facebook.
To keep the discussion simple, implement two levels of privacy, Public and Friends.
More complex levels like Friends of friends and Custom groups can be discussed towards the end of the interview if the time remains.

Detailed Interview Framework

You can use the following framework to better answer the Design Facebook Privacy Settings question in the interview. It will help you to maintain focus and answer it better.

Key Features
- As discussed above
Design Goals
- Minimum Latency
- High Consistency
- Partition Tolerance
- We will tolerate lower availability in the interest of high consistency (CAP Theorem)
- Read vs. Write Heavy
Scale Estimation
- Daily Active Users (DAUs)
- Read QPS
- Write QPS
- Data generated each day and over 10 years (Storage Utilization)
- Approximate number of servers required
REST APIs
- /setPrivacyLevel (Write API)
- /canView (Read API)
High-Level Design
- Discuss different privacy levels & data structure to define them.
- Explain how the system will determine whether the post can be displayed to a specific user or not.
- How to build the key-value store to persist the friends data of the users.
Database Design (Data Layer)
- Schema design
- SQL vs. No-SQL
- Sharding
  - Hash-based sharding
  - Consistent Hashing
- Replication (for Fault Tolerance)
- Quorum
  - Read + Write Consistency
Application Layer
- Multiple Stateless Servers with Load Balancer (Round-Robin)
Caching for Fast Retrieval
- Eviction Policy - LRU
Detailed Architecture Diagram

Optional

If time permits, you can also discuss the following towards the end of the interview:

Complex Privacy Levels
- Friends of Friends
- Custom Groups
Security, for example, ACL (Access Control List)

Preparation Material for this question

Learn more about the Key Features, Design Goals, Scale Estimations, REST APIs, High-Level Design, Detailed Architecture Diagram, and Framework to effectively prepare and answer this top question asked in the System Design Interviews at Facebook.

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Design Privacy Settings at Facebook

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook System Design Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

👩‍💻 Best System Design Interview Course
🚀 Complete SWE Interview Course [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]
🙋‍♀️ Behavioral Interview Guide [💰 Special Discount]
📚 Recommended Interview Preparation Book (on Amazon)

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This article is part of the series on System Design Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Had To Handle Pressure | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 21:12:10 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

For Software Engineers, the behavioral interview is actually part behavioral and part coding. The coding part is a shorter version of the usual coding interviews and is included to supplement the other two coding interviews to get an additional coding signal.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Had To Handle Pressure

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Never Worked Under Pressure".

Handling work pressure and stressful situations is a crucial part of everyone's career journey. Interviewers often ask candidates to tell about a time they had to handle pressure at their workplace.

Evaluation Criteria

Everyone faces stressful situations and comes under pressure once in a while at their jobs. Through this question, the interviewer's goal is to assess whether you can perform in challenging situations or unstructured environments and distinguish between the urgent and the important.

They are trying to understand if you can stay calm, exercise judgment, and act responsibly in such unexpected high-pressure scenarios. They are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

Employers want to know if you can:

Handle competing priorities,
Shift gears when needed, and
Understand the implications of missing deadlines.

They are looking to see if your coworkers can rely on you to get the work done.

Response Framework

Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate a real-life experience where you had to manage a high-pressure situation at your workplace.

Describe the situation, the events that occurred, and explain how it became challenging while working on a particular project. For example, it can be any of the following scenarios:

A few of your colleagues working with you on the project unexpectedly left the team or the company, and you were left short-staffed to complete it within the deadline.
Your manager or coworker might hand you a last-minute request that is of higher priority.
Something genuinely urgent comes up, like a production issue, for which you had to drop everything else.

Explain to the interviewer how you evaluated and decided your plan of action. For example:

You worked with your manager or technical lead to redefine your current OKRs and deprioritize a few optional tasks so that you can deliver the necessary features on time.
Describe how you were creative and resourceful to get additional help from your own or another team to deliver the project within the deadline.

Also, elaborate on how you communicated about this shift with your manager, coworkers, and other stakeholders.

Finally, express how the outcome and the impact were beneficial to the company or team. Also, explain the learnings you took from this challenging situation and how they helped you become a better engineer.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.

Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- It is most desirable to describe a real-life example to the interviewer to show that you have actually faced such a situation in your career and not just talk about a generic strategy.
Always remain calm, composed, and confident while answering this question.
Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about the actions you took to handle the challenging situation.
Show that you proactively communicated about the shifting priorities to all the stakeholders to keep them well informed.
Focus on the business impact that you had on your company or team.
The biggest way to mess up answering this question is by simply saying that you have never worked under pressure at your workplace.
- Instead, explain your strategies for dealing with stress in your day-to-day life.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Sample Answer (Example)

Here is Chandler. He is currently working as a tech lead at an internet startup. He is interviewing for the role of Staff Software Engineer at Facebook.

🎧 Listen to his response to this question in this YouTube Video

Special Case: Never Worked Under Pressure

It may be the case that you never had to work in a challenging and stressful situation at your workplace. New Grads and entry-level software engineers may fall under this category.

If you are in such a situation, do not end your answer by simply saying that you have never worked under pressure. Instead, try to use a real experience from your college or day-to-day life. For example:

Handling multiple courses and projects, dividing the time between your part-time job and coursework, etc.

This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes mentioned earlier:

How you manage your time,
Stay calm in stressful situations,
Exercise judgment,
Communicate, and
Shift gears when needed.

Preparation Material

Learn more about the Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, and Sample Answers (Examples) to effectively prepare and answer these top questions asked in the Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. Certain special cases are also discussed which are usually faced by the candidates during these interviews.

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Worked With A Difficult Person | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:05:28 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Worked With A Difficult Person

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Never worked with a difficult person".

"Tell me about a time you worked with a difficult person" is one of the most frequent questions asked in behavioral interviews. Interviewers sometimes phrase this question as "Tell me about a time you worked with someone challenging".

Evaluation Criteria

Once in a while, in every workplace, you will face a situation where you have to work with a colleague who has a difficult personality. By asking this question, the interviewer's goal is to assess how you work in difficult situations or unstructured environments.

They are trying to judge your:

Maturity level,
Communication skills, and
Willingness to speak up irrespective of your coworkers' seniority.

They are also evaluating whether you are empathetic and respectful towards your colleagues while understanding your coworker's motivations and viewpoints behind the conflict.

A crucial element to this question is that the interviewer is looking for a positive resolution of the conflict that benefits the company and not just an individual. They are trying to see if you are flexible to compromise and open to learning from challenging experiences.

Response Framework

Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate an actual situation where you had to work with a colleague who had a difficult personality.

Describe the situation, events that occurred, and explain what led to the conflict between you and your colleague.

It can be due to lack of communication and difference of opinions over a project design, code review, or some other disagreement.

Present both sides of the arguments in a positive and empathetic way. This will help you to come across as level-headed and professional. It will demonstrate that you take time to understand other people's perspectives and are not narrow-minded when working with others.

Explain the exact steps you took to address the challenging situation.

It can be a one-on-one discussion with your colleague, doing more research, creating an updated plan of action, or pair programming with your coworker to come to a resolution.
This will demonstrate your ownership and problem-solving skills.
It will give the interviewer an inside look at how well you work in an unstructured environment.

Also, show that you proactively communicated the issue and its resolution to all the stakeholders to keep them well informed.

Express how the outcome was beneficial to the project and the company and not just to you and your coworker. Finally, explain the learnings you took from the conflict and how they helped you to avoid similar disagreements from happening again in the future and to become a better engineer.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.

Always remain calm and professional.
- Refrain from being negative and avoid blaming your employer, coworkers, or manager.
- Companies generally do not like to hire people who are always pointing fingers at others.
Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- Pick an example involving a business issue and avoid personal disputes.
Calmly explain both sides' points of view and show how a complete understanding or a compromise led to a better outcome for the company and not just an individual.
Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about the resolution than the conflict and mention the learnings that will help you avoid the same disagreements from happening again.
Show that you proactively communicated the issue and its resolution to all the stakeholders to keep them well informed.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Sample Answer (Example)

Here is Rachel. She is currently working as a Software Engineer at a major internet company. She is interviewing for the role of Senior Software Engineer at Facebook.

🎧 Listen to her response to this question in this YouTube Video

Special Case: Never Worked With A Difficult Person

It may be the case that you actually never worked with a difficult person so far in your career. New Grads and entry-level software engineers usually fall under this category.

If you are in such a situation, do not end your answer by simply saying that you never worked with a difficult person in your career.

Instead, provide your interviewer with a hypothetical situation and walk through how you would respond and modify your course of action in such a situation just as you would for a real past experience.

This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes mentioned earlier:

How well you can handle a conflict,
Work in ambiguous situations, and
You're open-minded and flexible.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About A Time When The Project Was Ambiguous | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 18:00:13 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell Me About A Time When The Project Was Ambiguous

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Never Worked On Ambiguous Projects".

"Tell me about a time when the project was ambiguous" is one of the tough questions asked in the behavioral interview.

Evaluation Criteria

In everyone's career journey, they face a challenging situation where they need to work on a task that is ambiguous, uncertain, and does not have a clear path forward. By this question, the interviewer's goal is not to trick you but to assess how well you can adapt and perform in challenging situations and unstructured environments.

They are trying to understand your ability to be:

Proactive,
Stay calm,
Exercise judgment, and
Act responsibly in such unexpected scenarios.

They are assessing your perseverance to explore the ambiguity and learn new things, despite the challenges. They are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

Employers want to know if you can handle competing priorities, shift gears when needed, and understand the implications of missing deadlines. They are looking to see if your coworkers can rely on you to get the work done.

Response Framework

Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate a real-life experience where you had to work on an ambiguous task at your workplace.

Describe the situation, the events that occurred, and explain the ambiguity involved in the task at hand. For example, it may be one of the following scenarios:

Your manager or director may ask you to lead the development of a vague feature request.
You may discover a potential area of improvement in the current architecture, which may be ambiguous, to begin with.

Explain your strategy to the interviewer on how you proactively gathered the requirements and use cases to bring more clarity to the project. For example:

Conducting customer interviews or user research to gather data to make an informed decision.
Exploring open-source projects and reading research publications to understand the existing technologies and how you can leverage them to architect your new service.

Also, elaborate on the quick proof of concept or prototype that you implemented to validate your solution. Show that you proactively communicated your findings and key decisions to all the stakeholders.

Finally, express how your strategy helped define a plan of action and complete the required deliverables within the deadline. Also, let the interviewer know how the outcome and the impact were beneficial to the company or team. Explain the learnings you took from this challenging situation and how they helped you become a better engineer.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.

Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- It is most desirable to describe a real-life example to the interviewer to show that you have actually faced such a situation in your career and not just talk about a generic strategy.
Always remain calm, composed, and confident while answering this question.
Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about the actions you took to understand the ambiguity of the project.
- For example, focus on the strategy you used to gather the data to bring clarity to the project.
Show that you proactively communicated your findings and key decisions to all the stakeholders.
The biggest way to mess up answering this question is by simply saying that you have never faced a challenging situation at your workplace where the task at hand was ambiguous.
- Instead, explain your strategies for dealing with such situations in your day-to-day life.
Focus on the business impact that you had on your company or team.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Sample Answer (Example)

Here is Ross. He is currently working as a Staff Software Engineer at a major technology company. He is interviewing for the role of Staff Software Engineer at Facebook.

🎧 Listen to his response to this question in this YouTube Video

Special Case: Never Worked On Ambiguous Projects

It may be the case that you have actually never faced a challenging situation at your workplace where the task at hand was ambiguous. New Grads and entry-level software engineers usually fall under this category.

If you are in such a situation, do not end your answer by simply saying that you have never faced an ambiguous scenario. Instead, try to use a real-life experience from your college or everyday life. For example:

You may need to gather data or do a quick proof of concept to validate your idea for a course project or thesis.

This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes mentioned earlier:

How well you adapt and perform in obscure situations,
Ability to be proactive and resourceful,
Exercise judgment and act responsibly under pressure,
Perseverance to explore the ambiguity and learn new things,
Communication skills, and
Problem solving and decision-making skills.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Worked On Something Outside Your OKR | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sun, 12 Sep 2021 19:15:35 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Worked On Something Outside Your OKR

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

"Tell me about a time when you worked on something outside your OKR" is a popular open-ended question asked in behavioral interviews.

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results, which is a goal-setting framework for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes.

Interviewers also tend to ask this famous question in the following ways:

Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond.
Tell me about a time when you exceeded your coworkers' or manager's expectations.
Describe a time you went beyond the expectations of a customer.
Have you ever exceeded expectations in one of your previous jobs?
Have you ever worked on a side-project at your workplace?

Evaluation Criteria

To grow in Software Engineering careers, employers expect developers to exceed expectations for promotions to the next level. By this question, the interviewer is trying to assess your:

Work ethic,
Personality, and
Motivation to take on new challenges with a positive attitude.

They are trying to understand your ability to be proactive and your perseverance to learn new things continuously. Employers want to know if you are independent in your thought process and have the willingness to do more than what is expected from you.

They are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

Response Framework

Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate a real-life experience where you worked on a project outside your OKRs.

Describe the situation, explain the project, and elaborate on why you believed this would benefit your team and company. For example:

While working on your current OKRs, you found a gap in a client library, for which you published an update that benefited multiple teams in your company.
You created code review guidelines for your company.
You collaborated with the recruiting team and hiring committees to improve your company's interview process.

Explain to the interviewer how you evaluated and executed your plan of action. Focus on your problem-solving and decision-making skills. Also, show how you communicated the updates to your manager and other stakeholders to keep them well informed.

Finally, express how the outcome and the impact were beneficial to your team and company. Also, explain the learnings you took from this situation and how they helped you become a better engineer.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.

Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- It is most desirable to describe a real-life example to the interviewer to show that you have actually worked on something outside your OKR and not just talk about a hypothetical situation.
Always remain calm, composed, and confident while answering this question.
Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about the project that you worked on outside your assigned goals.
Focus on the business impact that you had on your company or team.
Show that you proactively communicated the updates to all the key stakeholders to keep them well informed.
The biggest way to mess up answering this question is by simply saying no to the interviewer.
- Instead, try to use a real experience from your college or day-to-day life where you went above and beyond.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Sample Answer (Example)

Here is Monica. She is currently working as a Software Engineer at a major technology company. She is interviewing for the role of Senior Software Engineer at Facebook.

🎧 Listen to her response to this question in this YouTube Video

Special Case: Don't Have Any Work Experience

It may be the case that you don't have any work experience. New Grads and entry-level software engineers usually fall under this category.

If you are in such a situation, do not end your answer by simply saying no to the interviewer. Instead, try to use a real experience from your college or everyday life where you went above and beyond. For example:

As a Teaching Assistant, you exceeded your professor's expectations by effectively teaching a few classes in his absence.
For a course project, you went above and beyond by doing additional analysis, which was outside the project's scope.

This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes mentioned earlier:

Your work ethic and personality,
Motivation to take on new challenges with a positive attitude,
Enthusiasm to learn new things,
Communication skills,
Problem-solving and decision-making skills, and
Willingness to do more than what is expected from you.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

✅ Follow for Daily Coding Problem
✅ Join our membership for exclusive benefits

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Had To Learn Something Quickly | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sun, 05 Sep 2021 18:07:49 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Had To Learn Something Quickly

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

Another popular behavioral interview question is "Tell me about a time you had to learn something quickly".

Evaluation Criteria

In everyone's career journey, they face a situation when they have to learn something quickly to succeed at their job. By this question, the interviewer's goal is not to trick you but to assess how well you can adapt and perform in challenging situations and unstructured environments.

They are trying to understand your enthusiasm to:

Learn new things,
Exercise judgment under pressure, and
Shift gears when needed.

They are also evaluating your:

Communication skills,
Ability to self-identify the gaps in your skills, and
The willingness to improve yourself continuously.

They are looking to see if you understand the implications of missing deadlines and can your coworkers rely on you to get the work done.

Response Framework

Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate a real-life experience where you had to learn something new quickly to succeed at your workplace.

Describe the situation, the events that occurred, and explain what unexpected challenge needed you to pick up a new skill in a short period. For example:

Your manager or coworker might hand you a last-minute request of higher priority, requiring you to learn a brand-new skill to accomplish the task within a tight deadline.

Explain to the interviewer how you evaluated and decided your plan of action. Elaborate on the strategy that you used to ramp up yourself on the new skill or project. For example:

Going through the existing documentation and previous code reviews to understand the task better.
Scheduling a meeting with your manager or technical lead to get an overview of the assigned tasks.
Attending workshops or training seminars to learn the new technology required for the project.

Finally, express how your strategy was helpful in acquiring the new skill and completing the required deliverables within the deadline. Also, let the interviewer know how the outcome and the impact were beneficial to the company or team. Explain the learnings you took from this challenging situation and how they helped you become a better engineer.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.

Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- It is most desirable to describe a real-life example to the interviewer to show that you have actually faced such a situation in your career and not just talk about a generic strategy.
Always remain calm, composed, and confident while answering this question.
Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about the actions you took to handle the challenging situation.
Focus on the strategy you used to gather the information and close your knowledge gap to complete the task on time.
The biggest way to mess up answering this question is by simply saying that you have never faced a challenging situation at your workplace where you had to learn something quickly.
- Instead, explain your strategies for dealing with such situations in your day-to-day life.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Sample Answer (Example)

Here is Joey. He is currently working as a junior software engineer at a major technology company. He is interviewing for the role of Software Engineer at Facebook.

🎧 Listen to his response to this question in this YouTube Video

Special Case: Don't Have Any Work Experience

It may be the case that you don't have any work experience. New Grads and entry-level software engineers usually fall under this category.

If you are in such a situation, do not end your answer by simply saying that you have never faced a challenging situation where you had to learn something quickly. Instead, try to use a real-life experience from your college or everyday life. For example:

You may need to learn a new programming language or skill to complete a course project.
As a Teaching Assistant, you may need to learn how to conduct office hours and grade papers effectively while balancing your coursework.

This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes that we mentioned earlier:

How well you adapt and perform in unexpected situations,
Exercise judgment under pressure,
Your enthusiasm to learn new things,
Ability to self-identify the gaps in your skills, and
Willingness to improve yourself continuously.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Received Constructive Feedback | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 16:01:31 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Received Constructive Feedback

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

"Tell me about a time you received constructive feedback" is one of the most challenging questions asked in the behavioral interview. Interviewers sometimes also ask this question as "What is your greatest weakness?"

Evaluation Criteria

Everyone makes mistakes in their careers and has received constructive feedback from their managers or peers. By this question, the interviewer's goal is not to trick you but to assess how you react when you receive feedback from others.

They want to get a handle on how well you can adapt and perform in challenging situations and unstructured environments. They are trying to judge your ability to stay calm and composed with the right attitude when receiving criticism of any type, whether constructive or negative.

Employers want to understand your enthusiasm to:

Learn new things,
Exercise judgment under pressure, and
Shift gears when needed.

They are also evaluating your:

Communication skills,
Ability to identify the gaps in your skills, and
The willingness to improve yourself continuously.

Response Framework

Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate a real-life experience where you received constructive feedback from your manager or peer at your workplace.

Describe the situation, the events that occurred, and explain what feedback you received and from whom.

Elaborate to the interviewer how did you react when you received the feedback. Show that you maintained a calm and composed attitude and were not defensive to the person who gave you the feedback.

Explain to the interviewer how you evaluated and decided your plan of action. Elaborate on the strategy that you used to improve yourself based on the criticism.

Finally, express to the interviewer that you are level-headed and act responsibly even in times of disagreement. Show that the steps you took helped you in addressing the feedback. Explain the learnings you took from this challenging situation and how they helped you become a better engineer.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.

Always remain calm, composed, and professional.
- Refrain from being negative and avoid blaming your employer, coworkers, or manager.
- Companies generally do not like to hire people who are always pointing fingers at others.
Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- It is most desirable to describe a real-life example to the interviewer to show that you have actually faced such a situation in your career and not just talk about a generic strategy.
Choose a criticism or feedback that does not disqualify you from the job you are applying for.
Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about your strategy and the actions you took to improve yourself.
The biggest way to mess up answering this question is by simply saying that you have never received constructive feedback at your workplace.
- Instead, explain your strategies for dealing with such situations from your day-to-day life or the projects you did in college.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Sample Answer (Example)

Here is Phoebe. She is currently working as a Technical Lead at a major technology company. She is interviewing for the role of Staff Software Engineer at Facebook.

🎧 Listen to her response to this question in this YouTube Video

Special Case: Don't Have Any Work Experience

It may be the case that you don't have any work experience. New Grads and entry-level software engineers usually fall under this category.

If you are in such a situation,

Do not end your answer by simply saying that you have never received constructive feedback at your workplace.
Remember, no human is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes in their life.
Try to use a real-life experience from your everyday life or the projects you did in college.

This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes that we mentioned earlier:

How you react when you receive feedback of any type, whether constructive or negative,
Ability to stay calm and composed with the right attitude,
Enthusiasm to learn new things,
Communication skills,
Ability to identify the gaps in your skills, and
Willingness to improve yourself continuously.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

✅ Follow for Daily Coding Problem
✅ Join our membership for exclusive benefits

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About A Time Project Took Longer Than Expected | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 15:24:49 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell Me About A Time A Project Took Longer Than Expected

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

Software Engineering projects usually take longer time than planned. As a result, interviewers often ask the candidates to tell about a time when their project took longer than expected.

Evaluation Criteria

Everyone in their career journey has worked on a project which has taken more time than initially planned. By asking this question, the interviewer's goal is to assess whether you can adapt and perform in challenging situations or unstructured environments.

They want to get a handle on how well you can:

Manage competing priorities,
Understand the implications of missing deadlines, and
Shift gears when needed.

They are trying to see if you can distinguish between the urgent and the important.

Employers want to know your ability to stay calm, exercise judgment, and act responsibly in such unexpected high-pressure situations. They are assessing your perseverance to explore the ambiguity and learn new things, despite the challenges.

Interviewers are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

They are looking to see if your coworkers can rely on you to get the work done.

Response Framework

Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate a real-life experience where you worked on a project at your workplace, which took longer than expected.

Describe the situation, events that occurred, and explain how and why the project got delayed from its initial estimation. For example, it can be any of the following scenarios:

A few of your colleagues working with you on the project unexpectedly left the team or the company, and you were left short-staffed to complete it within the current deadline.
The agreed requirements got modified by the client team in the middle of the quarter.
Something genuinely urgent comes up, like a production issue, for which you had to drop everything else.

Explain to the interviewer how you evaluated and decided your plan of action. For example:

You worked with your manager to re-assess the remaining OKRs for the project, deprioritize a few optional tasks, and create an updated timeline to deliver the necessary features.
Describe how you were creative and resourceful to get additional help, if required, either from your own or some other team, to deliver the project within the modified deadline.

Also, elaborate on how you communicated about this shift with your manager, coworkers, and other stakeholders to keep them well informed.

Finally, express how the outcome and the impact were beneficial to the company or team. Explain the learnings you took from this challenging situation and how they helped you become a better engineer.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.

Always remain calm, composed, and professional.
- Refrain from being negative and avoid blaming your employer, coworkers, or manager.
- Companies generally do not like to hire people who are always pointing fingers at others.
Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- It is most desirable to describe a real-life example to the interviewer to show that you have actually faced such a situation in your career and not just talk about a generic strategy.
Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about the actions you took to handle the challenging situation.
Show that you proactively communicated about the shifting deadlines to all the stakeholders to keep them well informed.
Focus on the business impact that you had on your company or team.
The biggest way to mess up answering this question is by simply saying that you have never worked on a project at your workplace, which took longer than expected.
- Instead, explain your strategies for dealing with such situations in your day-to-day life.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Sample Answer (Example)

Here is Mike. He is currently working as a Senior Software Engineer at a major technology company. He is interviewing for the role of Staff Software Engineer at Facebook.

🎧 Listen to his response to this question in this YouTube Video

Special Case: Don't Have Any Work Experience

It may be the case that you actually never worked on a project at your workplace, which took longer than expected. New Grads and entry-level software engineers may fall under this category.

If you are in such a situation,

Do not end your answer by simply saying no to this question.
Instead, try to use a real experience from your college or day-to-day life. For example:
- The project you were working on as the Graduate Research Assistant got delayed due to new additional requirements.

This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes that we mentioned earlier:

How well you adapt and perform in challenging situations,
Manage competing priorities,
Understand the implications of missing deadlines,
Ability to stay calm, exercise judgment, and act responsibly,
Communication skills, and
Time management skills.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

✅ Follow for Daily Coding Problem
✅ Join our membership for exclusive benefits

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 2) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 16:03:01 +0000

This article is the second part of the series on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions. In the first part, we discussed the following:

Now let us review the next top behavioral questions, which are usually asked at Facebook.

Question 1: Tell Me About A Time You Had To Handle Pressure

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Never Worked Under Pressure".

Handling work pressure and stressful situations is a crucial part of everyone's career journey. Interviewers often ask candidates to tell about a time they had to handle pressure at their workplace.

Evaluation Criteria

They are trying to understand if you can stay calm, exercise judgment, and act responsibly in such unexpected high-pressure scenarios. They are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

Employers want to know if you can:

Handle competing priorities,
Shift gears when needed, and
Understand the implications of missing deadlines.

They are looking to see if your coworkers can rely on you to get the work done.

Question 2: Tell Me About A Time You Worked With A Difficult Person

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Never worked with a difficult person".

Evaluation Criteria

They are trying to judge your:

Maturity level,
Communication skills, and
Willingness to speak up irrespective of your coworkers' seniority.

They are also evaluating whether you are empathetic and respectful towards your colleagues while understanding your coworker's motivations and viewpoints behind the conflict.

Question 3: Tell Me About A Time When The Project Was Ambiguous

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Never Worked On Ambiguous Projects".

"Tell me about a time when the project was ambiguous" is one of the tough questions asked in the behavioral interview.

Evaluation Criteria

They are trying to understand your ability to be:

Proactive,
Stay calm,
Exercise judgment, and
Act responsibly in such unexpected scenarios.

They are assessing your perseverance to explore the ambiguity and learn new things, despite the challenges. They are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

Question 4: Tell Me About A Time You Worked On Something Outside Your OKR

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

"Tell me about a time when you worked on something outside your OKR" is a popular open-ended question asked in behavioral interviews.

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results, which is a goal-setting framework for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes.

Interviewers also tend to ask this famous question in the following ways:

Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond.
Tell me about a time when you exceeded your coworkers' or manager's expectations.
Describe a time you went beyond the expectations of a customer.
Have you ever exceeded expectations in one of your previous jobs?
Have you ever worked on a side-project at your workplace?

Evaluation Criteria

To grow in Software Engineering careers, employers expect developers to exceed expectations for promotions to the next level. By this question, the interviewer is trying to assess your:

Work ethic,
Personality, and
Motivation to take on new challenges with a positive attitude.

They are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

Question 5: Tell Me About A Time You Had To Learn Something Quickly

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

Another popular behavioral interview question is "Tell me about a time you had to learn something quickly".

Evaluation Criteria

They are trying to understand your enthusiasm to:

Learn new things,
Exercise judgment under pressure, and
Shift gears when needed.

They are also evaluating your:

Communication skills,
Ability to self-identify the gaps in your skills, and
The willingness to improve yourself continuously.

They are looking to see if you understand the implications of missing deadlines and can your coworkers rely on you to get the work done.

Question 6: Tell Me About A Time You Received Constructive Feedback

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

Evaluation Criteria

Employers want to understand your enthusiasm to:

Learn new things,
Exercise judgment under pressure, and
Shift gears when needed.

They are also evaluating your:

Communication skills,
Ability to identify the gaps in your skills, and
The willingness to improve yourself continuously.

Question 7: Tell Me About A Time A Project Took Longer Than Expected

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".

Software Engineering projects usually take longer time than planned. As a result, interviewers often ask the candidates to tell about a time when their project took longer than expected.

Evaluation Criteria

They want to get a handle on how well you can:

Manage competing priorities,
Understand the implications of missing deadlines, and
Shift gears when needed.

They are trying to see if you can distinguish between the urgent and the important.

Interviewers are also evaluating your:

Communication,
Time management,
Problem-solving, and
Decision-making skills.

They are looking to see if your coworkers can rely on you to get the work done.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

✅ Follow for Daily Coding Problem
✅ Join our membership for exclusive benefits

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp, macrovector_official, syarifahbrit, redgreystock

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Tell Me About Yourself? | Facebook Behavioral (Jedi) Interview Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 16:01:24 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Tell me about yourself?

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, and Tips & Tricks.

A common question asked by the interviewers at the start of the behavioral interviews is, Tell me about yourself?

Evaluation Criteria

This introductory question helps the interviewers in one of their primary goals, which is to get to know you.
Interviewers try to learn various aspects about you from:
- Your current and past experiences,
- Your core strengths,
- Your personality, and
- Your ability to respond to an unstructured question.
They also notice how well you can connect with your colleagues and communicate your ideas clearly and effectively.

Response Framework

A simpler way to structure the response to this question is to pick compelling stories that can elaborate on your present and past experiences.

You can begin this answer by discussing the significant accomplishments that you have contributed to in your current role.

Share the positive impact of your contributions on your colleagues and the company. This will help you to project confidence during the interview.

Also, touch a little bit on your past experiences and how they helped you to reach where you are.

It would be best to tie your story to the specific role and the company you are applying for. This will help the interviewer align your interests to the job requirements and make an informed decision.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks to effectively prepare for this question.

Have compelling stories about your current and past experiences. This story should show that you are passionate about your current work.
Pull your most proficient skills from the job description. This will help you to project confidence to the interviewer.
Be concise, honest, and engaging. Do not recite your entire resume in the interview.
Tailor your answer to the role and company you are interviewing for.
This is your first impression, and thus keep it on a positive note.
Prepare and practice the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Preparation Material

Learn more about the Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, and Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare and answer the top questions asked in the Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. Certain special cases are also discussed which are usually faced by the candidates during these interviews.

⬇️ Detailed Written Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

☕️ Buy us a Coffee at BuyMeACoffee.com/InterviewSage

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Do You Have Any Questions For Me? | Facebook Behavioral (Jedi) Interview Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 16:04:33 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Do you have any questions for me?

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Questions that you can ask, and Tips & Tricks.

The interviewers often asked a critical question towards the end of the behavioral interviews: "Do you have any questions for me?"

Evaluation Criteria

This question helps the interviewer to gauge your passion and interest in the current role you are applying for.

It would be best to frame your questions specific to the role and the company you are interviewing for. This will help demonstrate to the interviewer that you have done your homework about their company and culture.

It also gives you an opportunity to end the interview on a strong note.

Questions That You Can Ask

Here are a few sample questions that you can ask the interviewer at the end of the interview.

What is the New Hire onboarding process?
How and when are the performance reviews conducted? How are the performance bonuses and RSU refreshers decided?
How long have you been with the company?
What is your favorite part about working here?
What are the current projects that you are working on?
What are the biggest challenges that you have solved recently?
What gets you most excited about the company's future?

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks to effectively prepare for this question.

Do not respond with a "No" to this question. It is essential that you respond with a "Yes" and be ready to ask the interviewer a few questions.
Prepare a list of three to five engaging questions before the interview happens.
Ask questions that show you are engaged and excited about the role you are applying for.
Do not ask questions related to salary negotiations. However, you can ask questions related to the performance review process.
Ask questions that get the interviewer to talk about their careers. People appreciate it when you notice the interesting things they are doing.
Frame your questions specific to the company you are interviewing with. This will demonstrate that you have done your homework about them and their culture.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Written Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

☕️ Buy us a Coffee at BuyMeACoffee.com/InterviewSage

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

✅ Why Do You Want To Leave Your Current Role? | Facebook Behavioral (Jedi) Interview Series 🔥

The Interview Sage — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 16:03:32 +0000

Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.

Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.

Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.

Question: Why do you want to leave your current role?

Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, and Tips & Tricks.

Interviewers often ask the question in behavioral interviews, why are you leaving your current role?

Evaluation Criteria

Through this question, the interviewer is trying to understand your intrinsic motivation to check whether you are running away from something or running towards something.

It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate to the interviewer that you are someone who looks forward with a positive attitude in general.

Response Framework

Our advice for answering this question is to pick a couple of positive achievements in your current role and articulate how you can use these experiences to achieve your goals in the new role.

Additionally, you can also emphasize the things you are looking forward to in your new job, such as:

Working on larger-scale problems,
Better opportunities for impact, etc.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks to effectively prepare for this question.

Always remain calm and professional.
- Refrain from being negative and avoid blaming your employer, coworkers, or manager.
- Companies generally do not like to hire people who complain a lot.
Focus on what you have to look forward to and not what you are leaving behind. Some examples are that you would like to:
- Work on larger-scale problems,
- Have a better opportunity for impact, etc
Relate your response to the specific role and the company you are interviewing for.
- This will also demonstrate to the interviewer that you have done your homework about their company.
Familiarize yourself with the company's vision and its core values.
- This will help you to better align your answer to their interests.
Prepare and practice the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.

Preparation Material

⬇️ Detailed Written Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

#beginners #tutorial #programming #career

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:

Useful Links

✅ Educative.io Unlimited Plan [💰 10% off for first 100 users]
✅ TryExponent.com Membership [💰 Limited Time 10% offer]

☕️ Buy us a Coffee at BuyMeACoffee.com/InterviewSage

This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!

The Interview SageFollow

Our goal is to create Software Eng Interview tutorials to help you get a job at companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, & Amazon. We will deep-dive into System Design, Coding, & Behavioral interviews.

📸 Some images used are from freepik.com: Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp

Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

DEV Community: The Interview Sage

✅ Design Privacy Settings At Facebook | System Design Interview (Pirate Round) 🔥

Key Features

Detailed Interview Framework

Optional

Preparation Material for this question

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

Top Facebook System Design Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Pirate Interview Round

The Interview Sage ・ Jan 4 '21

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

Useful Links

The Interview SageFollow

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Had To Handle Pressure | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Had To Handle Pressure

Evaluation Criteria

Response Framework

Tips & Tricks

Sample Answer (Example)

Special Case: Never Worked Under Pressure

Preparation Material

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

Top Facebook System Design Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Pirate Interview Round

The Interview Sage ・ Jan 4 '21

Useful Links

The Interview SageFollow

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Worked With A Difficult Person | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Worked With A Difficult Person

Evaluation Criteria

Response Framework

Tips & Tricks

Sample Answer (Example)

Special Case: Never Worked With A Difficult Person

Preparation Material

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

Top Facebook System Design Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Pirate Interview Round

The Interview Sage ・ Jan 4 '21

Useful Links

The Interview SageFollow

✅ Tell Me About A Time When The Project Was Ambiguous | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Question: Tell Me About A Time When The Project Was Ambiguous

Evaluation Criteria

Response Framework

Tips & Tricks

Sample Answer (Example)

Special Case: Never Worked On Ambiguous Projects

Preparation Material

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

Top Facebook System Design Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Pirate Interview Round

The Interview Sage ・ Jan 4 '21

Useful Links

The Interview SageFollow

✅ Tell Me About A Time You Worked On Something Outside Your OKR | Facebook Behavioral Interview (Jedi) Series 🔥

Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Question: Tell Me About A Time You Worked On Something Outside Your OKR

Evaluation Criteria

Response Framework

Tips & Tricks

Sample Answer (Example)

Special Case: Don't Have Any Work Experience

Preparation Material

Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview

✅ Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Jedi Interview Round 🔥

The Interview Sage ・ May 15 '21

Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview

Top Facebook System Design Interview Questions (Part 1) | Facebook Pirate Interview Round

The Interview Sage ・ Jan 4 '21