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: String, Sorting

Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Interview date: 2026-01-15

Got offer: False

Summary

I had a technical phone screen focused on string manipulation and sorting.

Details

I was asked to implement the following:

1. Given a custom alphabet order (e.g., alphbet = a, d, c, b....), determine if an array of strings is sorted according to this custom order.
2. As a follow-up, given an array of sorted strings (according to some unknown alphabet), derive a possible alphabet order.