I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Meta in Nov 2020
Interview
Facebook has a long process with first recruiter screener, then phone screen, then on site with something like 6 rounds, including 3 behavioral interviews, 3 technical ones, one on data manipulation/programming, one on stats/ML and one on problem solving. In data exercises, they might provide you with raw data that needs quite a bit of cleaning, you really need to be prepared to clean character strings on the fly, which unless one already does regularly is essentially a non-starter.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There were many, one recurring one on the problem solving side:
- you have databases and users who access them and everyone has access to everything, need to come up with an access model that will require some access permission while not introducing too much friction
- on the stats and modeling side: Rotten tomatoes data, goal is to explore features that predict whether movie will be certified fresh or rotten by critics, data quite raw to turn into a model and iterate in 60 or 90 minutes, whatever it was
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.
