The interview horror story that still haunts me
Plus: some juicy news about Meta's new AI-enabled coding round
The Halloween countdown continues.
With that, we have an interview horror story that’ll leave even the most seasoned devs clutching their rubber duck — followed by some juicy MAANG news.
But first, don’t forget to take advantage of our most aggressive sale of the year: here’s the link to get 50% off your Educative unlimited subscription.
Last week, a few of you replied to my request for interview horror stories. Thank you all for sharing.
Reading through them, this one stood out — not because it’s rare, but because it happens a lot. And I think I have some antidotes to share with you.
“I was preparing for my first big MAANG interview: a Software Engineer (L3) role at Meta. I spent MONTHS doing technical prep for process management, distributed systems, and database scaling. I built mock APIs, designed fake backends, even ran through a few system design scenarios just in case. I really felt like I knew my stuff.
I crushed the coding round and the system design interview was probably my strongest. But then came the behavioral round.
Honestly, I thought it’d be the easy part. I had always gotten on well with teammates from previous roles, and never had an issue talking about my experience.
But every behavioral question hit harder than I expected: a time I failed, disagreed with a lead, or missed a deadline. And I froze. And when I came to, my answers were scattered, too technical, and didn’t really tell a story.
A couple days later, the rejection email hit my inbox. In typical fashion, the recruiter didn’t give an exact reason. But deep down I knew: I bombed because of the behavioral interview.”
If you’ve ever struggled through a behavioral interview, you’re not alone.
Most engineers underestimate it, but as an interviewer myself, I can tell you that the behavioral round is a bigger decision-maker than ever before. Trust me: in today’s saturated market, you’re competing with hundreds of developers who have the same technical skills. So what makes you a real hire for the team is the sense of what kind of team player you are — how you communicate, prioritize, and support your team when things go sideways.
The good news? There’s a system for this part too. I’ll give you three strong frameworks.
3 behavioral frameworks every engineer should know
1. STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result)
This is the standard template most interviewers expect. It’s perfect when you need to walk through a project, challenge, or achievement from start to finish.
Situation: Give context (what was happening, who was involved).
Task: Explain your specific responsibility or goal.
Action: Describe what you did to tackle it.
Result: Share the measurable or meaningful outcome.
👉 Why it works: STAR keeps your answer structured and easy to follow. It shows that you understand sequencing and can separate what you did from what happened around you — a key sign of self-awareness.
2. SOAR (Situation, Obstacle, Action, Result)
Some stories aren’t about steady progress, they’re about friction. SOAR helps you explain what went wrong and how you navigated through it.
Situation: Set the stage.
Obstacle: What got in your way (technical, interpersonal, or organizational).
Action: How you responded to the challenge.
Result: What you achieved or learned in the process.
👉 Why it works: SOAR highlights resilience and adaptability. It’s ideal when your story involves conflict, resource constraints, or a project that didn’t go as planned.
3. CAR (Context, Action, Result)
Other questions don’t need a full four-part breakdown. That’s when CAR shines: it helps you keep things tight and relevant.
Context: Briefly explain the setup.
Action: Focus on what you did.
Result: Close with impact or takeaway.
👉 Why it works: CAR trims the fat. It’s great for rapid-fire follow-ups or when you’re short on time and need to move quickly through multiple examples.
At first glance, these frameworks might look interchangeable. But the key is in the subtleties and knowing when to use each (especially under a time constraint). Here’s how you can practice:
Run a few mock interviews and challenge yourself to answer every question using a different framework.
Record your responses and note which one feels most natural for you.
Refine, repeat, and get comfortable shifting between them in real time.
That way, when the real interview hits, you’re not guessing which story structure fits — you’re choosing it with confidence.
AI-enabled coding rounds are officially a thing
Speaking of interview rounds at Meta...
There have been some murmurs that Meta’s new AI-enabled coding round is officially live, replacing one of the traditional onsite coding rounds. Here’s what it involves (big thanks to reddit user drCounterIntuitive for the breakdown):
60-minute CoderPad session with an AI-assist chat window (GPT-4o mini, Claude 3.5 Haiku, or Llama 4 Maverick; you can switch models). Somewhat similar interface to github copilot’s chat window, but simplified.
One thematic question with multiple checkpoints or stages (so it can be a multi-part question), not two separate LeetCode problems
You get a mini multi-file codebase (for Python: multiple .py files plus requirements.txt)
You can run and debug code in real time (no dry-running needed)
The interview started appearing early October 2025 for SWE and ML; likely rolling out to Production Engineers soon
Survive the season
Behavioral, technical, or AI-assisted — every interview round tells a story. The best engineers know how to prepare for all of them. You can keep your skills sharp and your prep structured with our most popular resources:
Stay prepared and stay out of the dark out there.
Happy learning!
- Fahim
Excellent analysis, it really makes me wonder what specific mechanims make the behavioral round so uniquely challenging, leading to that kind of freeze even for those with extensive technical prep and experience.