I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Meta in Jun 2020
Interview
I wish there were more to describe, but this is mostly just airing a grievance with Facebook's recruiters. I had a recruiter reach out to me about a month ago for a Data Engineering job. I'm not a data engineer, so no problem, but I had a friend who's at Facebook drop my resume in for a position better suited to my background. I received a rejection email on that position. No big deal. Happens all the time. Last week, another recruiter from Facebook hit me up for a data science job. I said "Hey wait, my friend put me in for a similar position a couple of weeks ago. I think it'd be pretty unfair if he didn't have an opportunity to receive a referral bonus." She reached out directly to my friend and asked him to submit my resume again for this Data Science position and then scheduled a call with me for today. A couple hours before our scheduled call, I received a rejection email akin to the one from a month ago. I replied to the recruiter who sent the rejection and said "Hey wait, I have a call scheduled for this afternoon. What's going on?" and she replied that there was a matter of a duplicate record. Then the original recruiter who had reached out to me totally ditched the call that we'd scheduled. I can handle the rejection. Again, happens all the time. They have something they're looking for and I'm not it. OK, no problem. But the absolute, total, incredible lack of professionalism from Facebook Recruiting is just embarrassing. I will _never_ respond to another Facebook recruiter. On the off chance I actually _want_ a job at Facebook, I'll work through my contacts and avoid their recruitment people at all costs.
Tough interview overall—definitely not what I expected. The technical rounds were intense, particularly when they had me design an A/B test for the News Feed ranking algorithm. I had to discuss metrics and sample sizes in detail. Lucky for me, the time I spent on PracHub right before the interview helped me nail that deep-dive question as it mirrored what I practiced. The behavioral questions felt standard but were still challenging. After a whirlwind process, they extended an offer, which I happily accepted.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design an A/B test to evaluate a new ranking algorithm for the Facebook News Feed. Walk through metric selection (engagement, time-spent, MSI, well-being), unit of randomization given network effects between friends, sample size and power calculations, how you'd detect novelty effects vs. true lift, and how you'd handle a guardrail metric regressing while the primary metric is up.
Total 7 rounds: first round for resume screening, second for technical screening, then for on-site virtual with 4 interviews back to back, then hiring manager round after team matching and then salary negotiation with HR
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Meta’s evaluation rubrics focus heavily on "Product Thinking over Fancy Math". Interviewers want to see if you can operate like a product owner with an analytical mindset, navigating messy scenarios affecting billions of users
The Interview Process is very structured -
First Tech Screening round - 45 mins (usually can extend a bit depending on the interviewer)
- 2 SQL Questions ( Medium to Hard ) - based on Joins
Full Loop - 4 rounds 45 mins each.
- SQL
- Behavioral
- Analytical Execution - stats & prob, A/B testing, case study
- Analytical Reasoning - Case study
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions on Bayes Theorem, Probability distribution, etc.