Meta TPM interview (questions, prep, and process)

Your recruiter is leading the process and taking you from one stage to the next. Here's what happens behind the scenes at each of the stages described above:

• After the TPM phone screen, the interviewers you've talked to have 24h to submit their ratings and notes to the internal system. Your recruiter then reviews the feedback, and decides to move you to the onsite interview or not depending on how well you've done.
• After the Onsite, the five interviewers will make a recommendation on hiring you or not and the recruiter compiles your "packet" (interview feedback, resume, referrals, etc.) If they think you can get the job, they will present your case at the next candidate review meeting.
• Candidate review meetings are used to assess all candidates who have recently finished their interview loops and are close to getting an offer. Your packet will be analyzed and possible concerns will be discussed. Your interviewers are invited to join your candidate review meeting, but will usually only attend if there's a strong disagreement in the grades you received (e.g. 2 no hires, 3 hires). If after discussions the team still can't agree whether you should get an offer or not, you might be asked to do a follow up interview to settle the debate. At the end of the candidate review meeting, a hire / no hire recommendation is made for consideration by the hiring committee.
• The hiring committee includes senior leaders from across Meta. This step is usually a formality and the committee follows the recommendation of the candidate review meeting. The main focus is on fine-tuning the exact level and therefore compensation you will be offered.

It's also important to note that hiring managers and people who refer you have little influence on the overall process. They can help you get an interview at the beginning but that's about it.

1.3 How TPM is organized at Meta

Finally, it's helpful to know how technical program management is organized at Meta. At the time of writing, there are two different TPM organizations within the company. The Infrastructure TPM org, and the Product TPM org.

The Infrastructure TPM org is a centralized organization that was started by ex-Microsoft program managers. It rolls into the Head of Infrastructure and delivers large-scale infrastructure programs. TPMs in that group tend to have a specific area of focus such as network engineering, data centers, capacity, etc. This is the first TPM org that was created at Meta and it usually hires candidates with a deep technical background.

The Product TPM org focuses on user-facing products (e.g. Newsfeed, Messenger, etc.) and rolls into the Head of Product Management for FB Apps.  This group was created because a lot of PMs at Meta don't have a technical background. Yet, some user-facing product features do require strong technical chops (e.g. using machine learning to detect harrassment on FB). Product TPMs are therefore the bridge between engineering and product in these cases. Their role is similar to product manager technical role at Amazon.

2. Example questions

Let's dive in and look at the five types of interviews you can expect at Meta:

• Technical project retrospective
• Architecture and system design
• Program sense
• Partnership
• Leadership

We've analyzed questions reported by former Meta TPM candidates on Glassdoor.com and identified the ones that were most frequently asked for each interview type. You'll find a summarized list of these questions below for each interview type (*though we have changed the phrasing or spelling in some cases to make the questions easier to understand).

2.1 Technical project retrospective

MetaTPMs tend to work on very technical programs. The technical project retrospective therefore aims at testing your technical depth.

This is the part of the interview process where you need to show that you have thorough technical knowledge of the past programs you have worked on. You should be ready to cover the following topics for the programs you choose to talk about: technologies and architecture used, technical dependencies and tradeoffs, resource planning, risk mitigation, etc.

We've listed a typical sequence of the questions you can expect in this interview below.

2.2 Architecture and system design

Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp all have 1bn+ monthly active users. Meta TPMs therefore need to to design systems that are highly scalable. The system design questions you'll be asked are typically open-ended and will feel like a discussion if things go well.

This is the part of the interview where you want to show that you can both be creative and structured at the same time. You should be ready to gather requirements, design a system at a high-level and then deep dive into relevant components with your interviewer.

Here are some common system design questions asked in the Meta TPM interview reports which can be found on Glassdoor.

For a closer look at the system design part of your interview, see our specific guide: Meta system design interview (questions, process, prep)

2.3 Program sense

Meta TPMs design and execute programs from end-to-end. It's therefore important that they have a strong ability to plan, work with others and unblock situations when needed.

This is the part of the interview process where you need to show you think about programs in a comprehensive way (e.g. resources, risks, KPIs, etc.) and have a track record of executing flawlessly.

We've listed a typical list of questions you can expect in this interview below. Notice you should be ready to answer hypothetical questions (e.g. How would you do XYZ), and behavioral questions (e.g. Tell me about a time you did XYZ).

2.4 Partnership

Meta TPMs usually work in cross-functional teams with other engineers, product managers, PMMs, designers, data analysts, etc. They need to communicate clearly, work with others efficiently, build trust and relationships, etc.

This is the part of the interview process where you really want to show that you are good at working with others and driving successful cross-functional collaboration. Be prepared to talk about situations where you've troubleshooted project bottlenecks, negotiated design components with engineers, adapted your program when requirements changed, etc.

We've listed a typical list of questions you can expect in this interview below. Again here, you should be ready to answer both hypothetical questions (e.g. How would you do XYZ), and behavioral questions (e.g. Tell me about a time you did XYZ).

2.5 Leadership / Team collaboration

Meta TPMs lead programs and usually don't have direct authority over most of the resources they work with. They therefore need to lead teams by influencing and motivating others, resolving conflicts when they arise, driving alignment across their team, etc.

This interview will feel similar to the Partnership interview but will focus on pure leadership rather than your ability to work in a cross-functional environment.

We've listed a typical list of questions you can expect in this interview below. In addition, we've also included typical behavioral questions (e.g. "Tell me about yourself", "Why do you want to work at Meta?", etc.) that you might get asked in any Meta interview.

3. How to prepare

Now that you know what questions to expect, let's focus on how to prepare. Here are the four most important things you can do to get an offer as a Meta technical program manager.

3.1 Learn about Meta's culture

Most candidates fail to do this. But before investing tens of hours preparing for an interview at Meta, you should take some time to make sure it's actually the right company for you.

Meta is prestigious and it's therefore tempting to ignore that step completely. But in our experience, the prestige in itself won't make you happy day-to-day. It's the type of work and the people you work with that will.

If you know TPMs, engineers or PMs who work at Meta or used to work there it's a good idea to talk to them to understand what the culture is like.

In addition, we would recommend reading up about Meta in the media or on its own publications. Here are some to get you started:

• Meta's 6 core values (by Meta)
• Facebook’s “hacker culture” (by Mark Zuckerberg, via Wired)
• Meta annual reports and strategy presentations (by Meta)
• Meta's approach to tech trends (by CB Insights)
• Meta org culture analysis (by Panmore Institute)

3.2 Practice by yourself

As mentioned above, you'll have five types of interviews at Meta: technical project retrospective, system design, program sense, partnership and leadership.

For the technical project retrospective, we recommend selecting one or two projects and writing answers for the different questions we have listed in the previous section. Remember that the main purpose of the interview is to test your technical depth. So, make sure you are comfortable with all the technical details regarding the programs you decide to talk about.

For system design interviews, we recommend studying our system design interview prep guide. The guide covers a step-by-step method for answering system design questions, and provides several example questions with solutions. 

For program sense interviews, we recommend diving into our program management primer, as well as how Meta does program management. A good starting point is the following two blog posts by Nick Corral and Anand Parikh who are both senior TPMs at Meta. You might also find the following Meta TPM video helpful. In addition, you'll want to write down answers for the program sense questions we've listed in the previous section.

For partnership and leadership interviews, we recommend reading our leadership and people management primers, as well as learning our step-by-step method to answer behavioral questions. You can then use that method to craft answers for the main questions we have listed above.

Finally, a great way to practice all these different types of questions, is to interview yourself out loud. This may sound strange, but it will significantly improve the way you communicate your answers during an interview and really makes a difference in our experience. Play the role of both the candidate and the interviewer, asking questions and answering them, just like two people would in an interview. Trust us, it works.

3.3 Practice with someone else

Practicing by yourself will only take you so far. One of the main challenges of TPM interviews is to communicate your different stories in a way that's easy to understand.

As a result, we strongly recommend practicing TPM interviews with a peer interviewing you. A great place to start is to practice with friends if you can. This can be especially helpful if your friend has experience with TPM interviews, or is at least familiar with the process.

3.4 Practice with ex-interviewers

You should also try to practice TPM mock interviews with expert ex-interviewers, as they’ll be able to give you much more accurate feedback than friends and peers.

If you know a TPM or a software engineer who has experience running interviews at Meta or another big tech company, then that's fantastic. But for most of us, it's tough to find the right connections to make this happen. And it might also be difficult to practice multiple hours with that person unless you know them really well.

Here's the good news. We've already made the connections for you. We’ve created a coaching service where you can practice 1-on-1 with ex-interviewers from leading tech companies like Meta. Learn more and start scheduling sessions today.

Applying for other companies? Check out our other company guides for Google, and Amazon, and our TPM interview guide.