7 steps of the Meta interview process & how to ace them

Meta interview process

Meta’s (formerly Facebook) interview process is time-consuming and difficult, and not knowing what’s ahead makes it even harder to prepare for.

We’re here to help. We work with 50+ ex-Meta interviewers on our platform, who have helped thousands of candidates navigate the Meta interview process.

Here’s what you need to know: Metas interview process can take up to eight weeks, and there are seven steps: resume screen, recruiter call, phone screen(s), onsite interviews, interviewer debrief, hiring committee, and salary negotiation. The steps that will require the most preparation are the phone screens and onsite interviews.

In the rest of this article, we’ll dive deep into each step and how you can prepare for it, including example questions from real Meta interviews.

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Step 1: Resume screen

The first step of Meta’s interview process is the resume screen. Here, after you’ve submitted your application through the Meta jobs portal, or been contacted directly via email or LinkedIn, recruiters will evaluate your resume to see if your experience aligns with the open position.

This is an extremely competitive step, as we’ve found that ~90% of candidates don’t make it past the resume stage. To help you put together a targeted resume that stands out from the crowd, follow the tips below.

Tips on crafting a resume:

  • Study the job description: The work experience that you display on your resume should relate directly to the role qualifications that you’re applying for.
  • Be specific: Use data to back up your claims. How many people were on the team that you managed? How were your successes measured? Quantify as much as you can.
  • Emphasize leadership: Meta values emergent leadership. As much as you can, highlight roles and positions where you took the lead and managed others, if applicable. 
  • Keep it to one page: Be concise. Recruiters often don’t have the time to study a resume in-depth, especially if it spans multiple pages.

The tips above include abbreviated information from our tech resume guides. For more detailed steps as well as examples to follow, take a look at one of our articles below:

The guides above are great starting points for you to make a competitive resume, for free. However, if you want personalized feedback and tips from those who know Meta’s hiring process firsthand, you’ll need to get input from ex-Meta recruiters themselves.

Step 2: Recruiter call

Once your resume has been approved, a Meta recruiter will get in contact with you to schedule a call. This generally lasts 20-30 minutes.

In most cases, this call is not technical, although some highly technical roles like software engineers may receive a few low-level screening questions that test general technical knowledge. 

Otherwise, you should expect questions like, “Tell me about yourself,” “Why Meta?”, and “Walk me through your resume.” Be prepared to explain your motivation for applying to the company, and to go over your previous experience.

The recruiter will also discuss with you how the overall interview process will work. If you have any specific questions (e.g. timeline, location, clarification about the job description), now is the time to ask. 

You’ll receive helpful interview prep materials from Meta, like this preparation guide for product managers. You’ll also have access to an online career portal, which will keep you updated with your application status, and includes practice questions and resources to work with.

If all goes well, the recruiter will get back in touch with you to schedule your first interviews: the phone screens.

Step 3: Phone screen(s)

Depending on the role, you will have one or two phone screens with a hiring manager and/or future peers. In most cases, these will be video calls, although some interviewers may opt for audio-only.

At this point, interviewers will dig deeper into your past experience with behavioral and hypothetical questions that test specific skills related to the role.

Technical roles will also include coding on a shared code editor or word document. In most cases, it will not include syntax highlight or auto-completion, so prepare for that kind of coding environment in advance. 

We’ve researched the interview process and questions for seven Meta roles, so we’ll give you a rough idea of what to expect for different types of interviews below. If you’re looking for exact example questions to work with, we’ll get to that in Step 4.

What to expect in Meta phone screens (by role):

Product managers: you’ll have two ~45 minute interviews that focus on product sense and analytical thinking.

Software engineers: you’ll share a simple coding editor with your interviewer and answer data structure and algorithm questions, as well as a few behavioral questions.

Engineering managers: you’ll have a similar coding round as the software engineers, with higher-level coding questions and behavioral questions around people and project management.

Data scientists: you’ll be asked a few general background questions, as well as SQL, coding, and statistics questions, showing your work on a shared coding platform.

Technical program managers: you’ll be asked a mix of questions about your past projects, architecture and system design, program sense, and cross-functional collaboration.

Account managers: you’ll be asked primarily behavioral and background questions that test your client service skills. In some cases, you may have to prepare a case study.

Product designers: you’ll have to present your portfolio, followed by an app critique.

Ultimately, if you’re prepared for the types of in-depth questions you’ll receive at the onsite stage, then you’ll be prepared for the initial phone screens. So let’s dive into the onsite portion, including the exact interview questions that have been reported by past candidates.

Step 4: Onsite interviews

The longest and most daunting step of the Meta interview process is the onsite interview loop. This may take place in their physical offices, or via video call.

Here, you will have three to six interview rounds that last 45-60 minutes each. If you are physically onsite, one of these may take the form of a more casual lunch interview.

As we mentioned before, we have created in-depth guides to the interviews for top Meta roles. Below, we’ll give you a breakdown of real interview questions asked at Meta for each of these roles, according to data from Glassdoor. 

Use these questions to prepare yourself for the onsite interview loop of the role you’re applying for.

4.1 Meta product manager onsite interview questions

Meta PMs must take on a range of tasks, including designing product features, improving existing ones, and setting product vision, all while working with a diverse range of stakeholders.

To test these capabilities, interviewers ask questions like the ones below. For more interview questions and resources on how to prepare for the Meta product manager interview, take a look at our guide to Meta PM interviews, or our guides to Meta RPM interviews or Meta product marketing manager interviews.

Meta product manager interview questions

Product sense

Analytical thinking

Leadership & drive

  • Tell me about yourself
  • Why Meta?
  • Tell me about a time when you overcame a challenge
  • Tell me about a time when you failed

4.2 Meta software engineer onsite interview questions

Meta software engineers solve some of the company’s most difficult problems through code while working closely with cross-functional teams. Take a look at the questions below to practice how you will demonstrate these skills in an interview.

For even more questions, an overview of the process, and a step-by-step preparation plan for Meta software engineer interviews, take a look at our Meta software engineer interview guide, or our guides for Meta machine learning engineers, Meta data engineers, Meta production engineers, or Meta front end engineers

Meta software engineer interview questions:

Coding

  • Given a non-empty string s, you may delete at most one character. Judge whether you can make it a palindrome (Solution)
  • Serialize and deserialize a binary tree (Solution)
  • Given two arrays, write a function to compute their intersection. (Solution)
  • Given a singly linked list L: L0?L1?…?Ln-1?Ln, reorder it to: L0?Ln?L1?Ln-1?L2?Ln-2?… (Solution)

System design

  • How would you design Instagram / Instagram Stories?
  • How would you design a distributed Botnet?
  • How would you design a system that can handle millions of card transactions per hour?

Behavioral

  • Tell me about yourself / Why Meta?
  • Tell me about the greatest accomplishment of your career
  • Tell me about a time you had to step up and take responsibility for others

4.3 Meta engineering manager onsite interview questions

Engineering managers at Meta must have similar technical skills as those tested in software engineer interviews, with an emphasis on soft skills like people and project management. This is because they’re moving from managing individual features to managing projects and teams.

The questions below were reported by real Meta engineering manager candidates. Use them to practice your answers. For a comprehensive guide to Meta engineering manager interviews, take a look at our Meta EM interview guide.

Meta engineering manager interview questions

People management

  • How do you manage your team’s career growth?
  • How do you manage difficult conversations?
  • How do you manage underperforming employees?

Project retrospective

  • Describe a software development project you led and your approach
  • Tell me about the high-level system design of a specific project
  • Tell me about a time you scaled a system

Culture fit

  • Tell me about yourself / Why Meta?
  • Why are you leaving your current job?
  • Tell me about a mistake you made and the lesson you learned from it 

System design

  • Design a real-time comment system to go under a Facebook post that may have millions of concurrent active users
  • How would you design the Facebook newsfeed? 
  • How would you use a load balancer for memcache servers?

Coding

  • Given a non-empty string s, you may delete at most one character. Judge whether you can make it a palindrome (Solution)
  • Given the root node of a binary search tree, return the sum of values of all nodes with value between L and R (inclusive) (Solution)
  • We have a list of points on the plane.  Find the K closest points to the origin (0, 0) (Solution)

4.4 Meta data scientist onsite interview questions

Data scientists at Meta must be able to derive useful insights from large and complex data sets. They use and manipulate that data using SQL, while working closely with cross-functional teams.

Interviewers ask questions like the ones below to test candidates on these skills. For more questions as well as a step-by-step plan to prepare for Meta data scientist interviews, take a look at our Meta data scientist interview guide

Meta data scientist onsite interview questions:

Product interpretation

  • What's your favorite Meta product and how can we improve it?
  • What Meta products are you familiar with?
  • How would you measure the success of a product?

Applied data

  • How would you use data to confirm that users’ high school data is real? (solution)
  • How would you evaluate the impact on teenagers when their parents join Facebook?
  • How would you predict churn rate?

Quantitative analysis

  • How do you explain p-value to non-technician?
  • What is a Recall metric? Can you explain it from scratch?
  • How would you predict Samsung phone sales?
  • How many orders of fries does McDonald's sell in a year?

Technical analysis

  • Provided a table with page_id, event timestamp, and an on/off status flag, find the number of pages that are currently on
  • What's the difference between a left join, a union, and a right join?
  • Can you find the first date of log on for a platform, given a list of users?
  • How do you revert a string?

Behavioral

  • Tell me about yourself / Why Meta?
  • Describe a data and analytics project you've worked on
  • Tell us about your past experience, skills and interests

4.5 Meta technical program manager onsite interview questions

Meta TPMs design and execute programs from end-to-end while engaging in highly technical discussions with engineers and other teams. They must be able to influence others without direct authority in order to drive programs through.

Practice demonstrating the skills above using the questions below, from real Meta technical program manager interviews. For more information about Meta TPM interviews, take a look at our Meta technical program manager interview guide, or our Meta program manager interview guide.

Meta technical program manager interview questions:

Technical project retrospective

  • Tell me about a project you managed end-to-end
  • Tell me about the architecture design and technical details for that project
  • Tell me about how you managed technical risks for that project

Architecture and system design

  • How would you design Instagram?
  • How would you design Whatsapp?
  • How would you design Facebook Live?

Program sense

  • What is your step-by-step approach to manage programs?
  • How do you make trade offs between time, resources, scope and risks?
  • How do you define roadmap milestones and execute your projects?

Partnership

  • Tell me about how you kept stakeholders up to date for a given project
  • How do you get resources from other teams to work on your projects?
  • How do you get multiple cross-functional teams to work together?

Leadership

  • Tell me about yourself / Why Meta?
  • Tell me about a conflict you resolved in your team
  • Tell me about a time you received difficult feedback from a manager
  • Tell me about a time you struggled to deliver a program

4.6 Meta account manager onsite interview questions

Account managers at Meta serve clients who use Meta’s products by identifying new opportunities for them to grow, helping them implement Meta’s products, solving their problems, analyzing data, and more.

Practice demonstrating your ability to do these things using the questions below. For more information about Meta account manager and technical account manager interviews, take a look at our complete guide on the subject

Meta account manager interview questions:

Product / strategy

  • What's your plan for your first six months on the job?
  • What is your favorite Meta product and why?
  • What is Meta’s business model?

Career

  • Tell me about yourself / why Meta?
  • Tell me 3 things that are not in your resume
  • Why are you looking to leave your current position?
  • If your boss could give any negative feedback about you, what would they say?

Leadership

  • Name a leader that inspires you
  • How do you work with a team?
  • Tell me about a time when you disagreed with teammate
  • Tell me about a time you challenged the status quo

Client service

  • How would you pitch Facebook to a client?
  • How would you budget a campaign for a client?
  • How many clients did you work with in your previous position?

4.7 Meta product designer onsite interview questions

Meta interviewers are looking for product designers with a track record of high-quality, thoughtful design work. They must be able to take ambiguous problems, break them down, and create solutions for them, while working with a variety of stakeholders.

Practice for your interviews using the questions below. For more information about Meta product designer interviews, take a look at our complete guide on the subject

Meta product designer interview questions:

Past work

  • What metrics signaled you to work on X problem?
  • If you could work on your project again, what would you do differently?

App critique

  • What do you think this app can do better?
  • What does the company want out of this app?
  • Why are these items placed here?

Problem solving

  • Redesign the ATM
  • Design a library book rental delivery app
  • Design a scheduling app

Behavioral

  • Tell me about yourself / Why Meta?
  • Who else did you work with when you were doing X?
  • What is the area where you have the most to learn?
  • What kind of challenges did you face working on your current product?

Step 5: Debrief

After you finish your onsite interview rounds, your interviewers will come together to compare notes on your performance in what is called the Debrief.

Each interviewer will have written up a summary of their experience with you, including the questions and your answers, as well as a final recommendation (e.g. Strong hire, hire, leaning hire, strong no hire, no hire, leaning no hire, etc.).

There are three possible outcomes from this meeting:

  1. Your profile is passed on to the hiring committee. (Typically if majority “hire” recommendations)
  2. You are called back in for follow-up interviews, to get more information. (Typically if mixed reviews on one or two specific competencies)
  3. Your profile is not passed on to the hiring committee, and you do not receive an offer. (Typically if multiple “no hire” recommendations)

Note that your profile being passed on to the hiring committee does NOT guarantee you an offer. It is, however, a step in the right direction. Your recruiter will keep you updated on every step of the process.

Step 6: Candidate review / Hiring committee

Finally, a hiring committee made up of third-party Meta employees will convene to review the information passed on to them from the debrief. This may also be called the “candidate review.”

This committee will review the information packet from the debrief committee as well as input from your initial screening rounds and application. As this group will not have met you in person during any of your interviews, they aim to review your profile without any inherent bias.

The hiring committee makes the final decision on whether or not you will receive an offer. Unlike at other companies like Google, candidates at Meta most commonly go through team matching after receiving their offer, at a 6-8 week program for new hires called the Bootcamp.

Your recruiter will keep you updated on the hiring committee’s final decision. The wait time varies, but if you have not gotten an update within a week or two of your onsite, you can politely check in with your recruiter to get an idea of where you are in the process.

Step 7: Salary negotiation

Finally, once you’ve passed each of the six steps above, you’ll receive your offer package from Meta.

At this point, all that is left for you to do is negotiate your offer. Your recruiter will get in touch with you about the details, likely scheduling one final call to clarify and discuss the terms. If they have not scheduled a call, you can ask for one.

Of course, salary discussions can be difficult and a bit uncomfortable, especially if you are not used to them. Below are some tips to help you navigate your salary negotiations. And you can also get salary negotiation coaching from ex-FAANG recruiters to help you maximize your compensation.

Salary negotiation tips:

  • Be polite: Remember that the person you’re negotiating with is just doing their job, and that the two of you are not enemies. You’ll get much farther in your negotiations if you approach the conversation with grace.
  • Don’t give a number right away: Whenever possible, it’s better to wait until you receive an offer to start negotiating. This reduces the risk of giving a number that is lower than what the company otherwise would have paid, or giving a number that is so high that they are reluctant to interview you.
  • Do your research: Have a number in mind before the conversation begins, and back it up with data. Research your position and level on Levels.fyi, ask around on professional social networking sites like Blind, factor in the cost of living where you are, and, ideally, get some input from a current Meta employee.
  • Start high: To start the conversation, name a compensation number that is higher than your goal, and the Meta negotiator will likely end up negotiating it down to a number that is closer to your original goal.
  • Negotiate everything: Your offer will include more than a base salary and stock options—you also have bonuses, vacation days, location, work from home, and other aspects to consider. If the salary won’t budge, there may be some wiggle room around the other perks.

Once you’ve completed this step and accepted your offer: congratulations! It’s time to start your career at Meta.

Are you ready for your Meta interviews?

As you may have noticed, Meta has a long and difficult interview process, which requires quite a bit of preparation to succeed.

The lists of practice questions and resources in section 4 above will give you a great start, but practicing by yourself will only take you so far. Ultimately, the best way to improve your interview skills is to do as many interviews as you can.

That’s why we’ve put together a coaching service where you can practice Meta mock interviews one-on-one with real ex-interviewers from Facebook / Meta. Start scheduling sessions today.