Software Engineer · Phone Screen · Coding

Meta — Software Engineer ❌ Failed

Level: Senior-Level

Round: Phone Screen · Type: Coding · Difficulty: 7/10 · Duration: 60 min · Interviewer: Neutral

Topics: Algorithms, String Manipulation

Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Interview date: 2025-12-20

Got offer: False

Summary

I interviewed with Meta and encountered an AI Coding round. The question involved finding the maximum subset of words with no overlapping characters, maximizing unique character coverage.

Details

I interviewed with Meta while they were planning significant AI-related layoffs. The interviewer presented a problem to find the maximum subset of words that do not overlap with each other, while the set captures the most characters.

For example, given the months of the year [jan, feb ... dec], a possible subset is [jan, feb, may]. The letters in this subset are a, b, e, f, j, m, n, y, totaling 7 unique characters. However, the combination [jan, may] is invalid because 'a' is present in both words. The objective is to maximize the number of unique letters covered, ensuring no word in the subset shares a common letter with any other word in the subset.

Problem: Find the maximum subset of words that are not overlapping with each other, but the set captures the most characters.