Get a Job at Meta: Interview Process and Top Questions

Learn how to prepare for Meta interviews with this in-depth guide.

We break down the Meta interview process and the top questions you should expect to answer.

About Meta

What is Meta?

Founded in 2004 as Facebook, Meta is one of the world's largest technology companies, connecting billions of people through its family of social media platforms and pioneering the future of virtual and augmented reality.

Meta's mission is to connect the world and give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together through innovative technology and immersive experiences.

Where is Meta located?

With headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Meta operates globally with major offices in Seattle, New York, London, Dublin, Singapore, Tel Aviv, and dozens of other locations worldwide.

The company employs over 70,000 people globally who work on products used by billions of users daily.

Who does Meta hire?

Meta prides itself on hiring talented people who can learn and adapt rather than just domain experts. The company values unique perspectives and encourages authenticity in interviews.

Meta operates with a relatively flat organizational structure, meaning you'll interview with peers, higher-ups, and cross-functional partners who represent the collaborative environment you'd join.

Meta Interview Guides

Get role-specific insights for Meta interviews:

• Meta Software Engineer (SWE) Interview Guide
• Meta Engineering Manager (EM) Interview Guide
• Meta Product Manager (PM) Interview Guide
• Meta Machine Learning Engineer (MLE) Interview Guide

Meta Interview Process

The Meta interview process includes:

• A recruiter phone screen,
• A domain-specific technical screen,
• A comprehensive final round (3-5 interviews).

Meta is invested in technologies shaping the future, from social media and messaging platforms to virtual reality and the metaverse.

The company seeks candidates who thrive in cross-functional teams and can adapt to rapidly evolving technical challenges.

How long does the interview process take?

Meta's interview process typically takes 4-8 weeks from initial contact to final decision.

The timeline varies based on role complexity, team availability, and the depth of technical assessments required.

Does Meta's interview process vary by role?

Meta's interview process follows a consistent three-stage structure but varies significantly in technical focus by role.

• Engineering roles emphasize coding and system design.
• Data roles focus on SQL and experimentation.
• Product roles concentrate on product sense and analytical thinking.

How does Meta make hiring decisions?

After the final round, a candidate review meeting is held by the hiring team to evaluate all applicants and make recommendations.

The hiring committee, separate from the interviewing team, makes the final hiring decision based on these recommendations and overall candidate assessment.

Recruiter Phone Screen

The interview process at Meta begins with a 20-30 minute phone call with a recruiter to confirm basic qualifications and cultural fit.

This initial screen is similar across all roles and focuses on understanding your background, motivation, and alignment with Meta's collaborative culture.

What is the Meta recruiter screen?

Be prepared to discuss:

• Your resume and relevant background,
• Why you want to work at Meta,
• Obstacles you've overcome in your career,
• Questions about the role and team you're joining,
• The remainder of the interview process.

Highlight experiences that demonstrate your ability to work cross-functionally and adapt to changing environments, as these are core to Meta's collaborative culture.

How should I prepare for the recruiter call?

To prepare for the Meta recruiter screen, research Meta's core values and recent product developments across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs.

Practice articulating your interest in Meta's mission to connect the world and prepare examples showing your adaptability and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Technical Screen

If you pass the recruiter screen, you'll advance to a 45-minute domain-specific technical assessment tailored to your role.

What is the Meta technical screen for engineers?

For engineering roles, this involves a live coding challenge on CoderPad with two medium-to-hard data structure and algorithm questions.

You'll spend the first few minutes on introductions and resume discussion, then tackle practical coding problems while explaining your thinking and approach.

Engineering candidates should practice clear communication while coding, as interviewers assess both technical skills and problem-solving articulation.

Is the technical screen difficult?

Meta's technical challenges range from medium to hard difficulty, requiring both algorithmic knowledge and clear communication skills.

Interviewers may ask follow-up questions, request optimizations, or present additional challenges based on your initial solution.

What about non-engineering roles?

Data science roles receive technical screens focusing on SQL, statistics, and product sense case studies.

Product management roles face product sense and analytical questions, including hypothetical case studies and metric identification challenges.

Can I use AI during Meta interviews?

Some engineering job candidates are allowed to use an AI assistant during coding interviews.

This is according to internal documents at Meta.

Final Round Interviews

What is Meta's final round?

The final round consists of 3-5 interviews conducted virtually, broken into domain-specific categories such as coding, system design, and behavioral rounds for engineers.

Each interview lasts approximately 45 minutes and assesses different aspects of your technical and cultural fit.

Final round structure by role

Engineering roles typically include:

• Multiple coding rounds similar to the technical screen,
• System design interviews for architecture assessment,
• Behavioral rounds focusing on cross-functional collaboration.

Final round for non-engineering roles

Data science and product roles face specialized interviews covering domain expertise, case study analysis, and cross-functional collaboration scenarios.

Is there always a behavioral component?

Yes, all Meta candidates undergo a 45-minute behavioral interview focusing on cross-functional teamwork, conflict resolution, leadership, and alignment with Meta's values.

How long does the decision process take?

After completing final round interviews, expect to hear back within 1-2 weeks.

Meta recruiters are known for being responsive and will provide updates on your candidacy status throughout the process.

Meta Interview Questions

These are examples of real interview questions asked at Meta.

Behavioral

• Tell me about yourself.
• Tell me about a time you made a mistake.
• Tell me about a time when you received negative feedback and how you handled it.
• Can you provide an example of how you manage conflict?
• Tell me about a time you made a bold and difficult decision.
• Describe a time you worked effectively in a cross-functional team.

Coding

• Given an array of numbers where every number occurs twice except one, how would you find the unique number in O(log n) time?
• Find the number of users who called three or more people in the last week.
• Find the sum of all elements in a binary tree that fall within the range [low, high].
• Merge intervals
• Given a head node of a linked list, delete k-th node from the end of the list.
• Implement a data structure to support Facebook's news feed algorithm.

System Design

• Design Facebook Messenger.
• How would you design 'Hot Topics' on Instagram?
• Design a web crawler to download content from www.example.com without detection.
• Design a notification system for Meta's family of apps.
• Design a system to handle Instagram's photo and video uploads.

Data Science

• Imagine you're a data scientist at Meta. There's been a sudden 10% drop in Facebook's daily post views. How would you investigate?
• How would you measure the success of Facebook dating?
• How would you evaluate the impact of fake news on Facebook users?
• Imagine you are a data scientist for Instagram. How would you balance ads and follower posts, and how would you monitor its effectiveness?
• How would you design an A/B test to measure the impact of a new WhatsApp feature?
• What metrics would you use to evaluate the success of Instagram Reels?

Product Management

• What product that you led are you most proud of and why?
• Tell me about a time when you proposed an idea that was not agreed on.
• How have you managed risk in a project?
• Tell me about a time when you used data to convince stakeholders.
• How do you prioritize competing features?
• How would you improve Facebook's content discovery algorithm?

Product Design

• Design a product for borrowing and lending.
• Design a product that helps people find contractors.
• Design Netflix for kids.
• Imagine you're a PM for Meta. Design a product for Volunteering. What would you build?
• Design a feature to help people make new friends on Facebook.

Behavioral

The behavioral round at Meta focuses on:

• Cross-functional collaboration and teamwork,
• Leadership and initiative-taking,
• Conflict resolution and communication,
• Learning from mistakes and adaptability,
• And alignment with Meta's core values.

Meta's behavioral interview is conversational and open-ended, typically lasting 45 minutes with emphasis on how you work within diverse, cross-functional teams.

How should I prepare for behavioral questions at Meta?

Prepare by studying Meta's core values and developing specific examples that demonstrate cross-functional leadership and collaboration.

Focus on stories showing how you've worked effectively with engineers, designers, product managers, and data scientists to achieve common goals.

For behavioral interview questions, emphasize your ability to communicate across disciplines, resolve conflicts, and drive results in ambiguous situations.

Coding

Meta's coding rounds emphasize clean code, communication, and a problem-solving approach:

• Clear explanation of thinking process,
• Efficient algorithm implementation,
• Edge case consideration and testing,
• Code optimization and scalability.

How are coding rounds structured?

Engineering candidates typically face 2 coding rounds in the final interview, each lasting 45 minutes and similar in format to the technical screen.

The coding interviews assess both technical competence and your ability to communicate complex ideas clearly.

What topics are covered in coding rounds?

Meta's coding challenges focus on fundamental computer science concepts:

• Arrays and string manipulation,
• Stacks and queues for data processing,
• Hash tables for efficient lookups,
• Graphs and trees for complex relationships,
• Recursion and dynamic programming,
• Sorting algorithms and search techniques.

What does Meta look for in engineers?

Meta seeks engineers who can write clean, efficient code while clearly communicating their problem-solving approach and reasoning.

Practice coding without compilers or debuggers, timing yourself while explaining solutions, and testing edge cases systematically.

System Design

System design interviews at Meta assess your ability to architect solutions for large-scale problems similar to those Meta faces with billions of users.

Expect questions related to social media platforms, messaging systems, content delivery, and real-time communication challenges.

How should I prepare for Meta's system design round?

To prepare, study Meta's engineering approaches by reading their engineering blog and understanding design patterns used in their systems.

Focus on key system design concepts:

• Scalability for billions of users,
• Real-time messaging and notifications,
• Content delivery and media storage,
• Social graph representation and traversal,
• Feed generation and ranking algorithms,
• Cross-platform API design.

Meta interviewers assess your problem navigation, solution design, technical excellence, and communication skills throughout the design process.

What approach should I take?

Start simple and build complexity gradually, discussing trade-offs and business objectives throughout your design.

Practice zooming in and out on technical details while maintaining focus on the core problem and user experience.

Data Science

At Meta, data scientists work closely with product, engineering, and business teams to drive data-informed decisions across Meta's family of applications.

What are Meta's data science interviews?

Meta's data science final round goes deeper than the technical screen, featuring hard difficulty SQL and statistics questions.

You'll be assessed on complex SQL query writing with joins, subqueries, and aggregations, plus query optimization and debugging skills.

How are data science interviews structured?

The final round includes product sense case studies where you'll clarify problems, define success metrics, empathize with users, and use data to inform decisions.

Experimentation design questions assess your ability to create scientifically sound, efficient experiments with actionable results.

Key topics to study:

• Statistics and probability fundamentals,
• A/B testing methodology and analysis,
• ML concepts for data scientists,
• Product strategy and metrics design,
• SQL optimization and performance tuning.

Product Management

Meta's product management final round includes product sense, analytical, execution, and product design challenges.

You'll interview with cross-functional partners representing the collaborative environment of Meta's product teams.

Product sense and design

Product sense interviews test your ability to understand user needs, identify market opportunities, and think strategically about Meta's product ecosystem.

Product design challenges assess your structured thinking, user empathy, and decision-making around trade-offs while aligning with business objectives.

Analytical and execution skills

Analytical questions evaluate your data-driven decision-making, metric identification, and ability to measure product success.

Execution rounds examine your leadership, prioritization skills, and ability to drive cross-functional initiatives in Meta's fast-paced environment.

Meta-specific preparation

Study Meta's core products—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Reality Labs—to understand user experiences and potential improvements.

Download and actively use these products to develop informed perspectives on design decisions, user flows, and feature prioritization.

Meta Interview Tips

Embrace cross-functional collaboration.

Meta's success depends on cross-functional teams of engineers, product managers, designers, and data scientists working together effectively.

Prepare stories that demonstrate your ability to communicate across disciplines, align on common goals, and consider multiple perspectives in decision-making.

Leverage Meta's supportive interview culture.

Meta wants you to succeed and provides extensive preparation resources, including in-depth guides, mock interviews for junior roles, and helpful recruiter guidance.

Take advantage of these resources and don't hesitate to ask clarifying questions during interviews—Meta values authenticity and learning.

Study Meta's core products thoroughly.

Meta frequently asks design questions about their own products, so download and explore Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Reality Labs products.

Read Meta's engineering blogs and career resources to understand the technical infrastructure and product philosophy behind these platforms.

FAQs

How competitive are Meta interviews?

Meta's technical interviews are challenging, requiring candidates to solve medium-to-hard problems efficiently while communicating clearly.

The company expects strong technical competence but values adaptability and learning ability over perfect knowledge, encouraging candidates to say "I don't know" and then apply problem-solving approaches.

How long does it take to hear back after Meta interviews?

Meta recruiters are known for being responsive and helpful throughout the process.

Expect to hear final results within 1-2 weeks after completing the full interview loop, though you can reach out to your recruiter if you haven't heard back in that timeframe.

Does Meta have a cooling-off period for reapplying?

Meta doesn't have an official cooling-off period as long as you apply for different roles.

Most candidates wait 3-6 months before reapplying to allow time for skill development and additional interview preparation, though some teams may suggest waiting up to a year.

How should I prepare for Meta's emphasis on communication?

Since Meta values clear communication throughout technical interviews, practice explaining your thinking process while coding or designing systems.

Focus on articulating trade-offs, walking through your reasoning, and engaging in collaborative problem-solving rather than just providing correct answers.

Meta Interview Prep

Exponent has extensive resources to prepare you to feel your best when it comes time for your interview at Meta:

• 💬 Brush up on interview questions asked at Meta
• 📖 Read through these role-specific Meta interview guides