Meta | E5 | phone screen

I recently completed a phone screen interview for a Software Engineer E5 position at Meta. The interviewer began with two coding questions, allowing 45 minutes to complete them.

1. Search a 2D Matrix II - This question is not frequently asked.
2. Valid Palindrome II - This is a top 50 question.

I had not encountered the first problem before. I spent the first 10 minutes brainstorming a binary search approach (NLogN complexity). I received a hint to consider starting from a different corner, which led me to the optimal solution using the top-right corner (O(M+N) complexity). The interviewer was supportive and helped me stay calm. At the 21-minute mark, I had a working code and performed a dry run.

The second question was familiar, and I solved it efficiently. I performed a line-by-line dry run with one test case and skimmed through the logic for other test cases.

The outcome was a successful completion of the interview.