I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Meta (Menlo Park, CA) in Sep 2013
Interview
This was a very long process. However the recruitment team was extremely helpful in keeping me completely informed at every step of the way (a huge plus).
As a disclaimer, coming from years of working in academic settings I have no point of comparison. These are just my personal impressions.
I was introduced to a recruiter after one of our students started working at Facebook. He was very prompt in getting back to me and setting up a phone call. He then passed my resume to another recruiter (closer to my area of expertise).
Over the next few weeks, I had a number of phone conversations with different people (mostly analytic, coding and statistics type questions.) The recruiter working with me was very prompt in touching base with me after each interview, telling me how they felt about the interview and getting my feedback on how I felt about it. After a few weeks they flew me to Menlo Park for an on site interview.
The on site interview consisted of a series of five 30-minute interviews with project managers, data scientists and software engineers, all of whom were very engaging and interesting people. Talks were 1/4 about my current work, a bit less than 3/4 technical questions they expected me to work through, and a few minutes of time for my questions about the company, its people and processes.
The recruiter reached out to me after the on site interview and scheduled two more phone interview, and an offer was made shortly after the last phone interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Nothing unexpected, mostly because they will tell you in detail what to expect in each interview. Coding on a collaborative text editor while doing a phone interview was new to me. I had a lot of typos, and syntax errors the first time I tried it. I'd recommend doing a practice run with a friend just so one gets used to the set up.
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.
A friend who worked at Meta recommended I apply, which led to a direct connection with the hiring team. My interview journey included a technical screen focused on product metrics and a behavioral interview. The final round faced me with a practical question about measuring success for a new push notification feature. Funny enough, I had found similar questions in the company-specific prompt section on PracHub, which helped me approach it confidently. Ultimately, I received an offer but decided to decline it for personal reasons.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you measure the success of a new push notification feature on Instagram? Walk through your primary metric, guardrail metrics, how you'd design the A/B test (randomization unit, sample size, duration), and the tradeoffs between short-term engagement lift and long-term retention impact.
I applied online. The process took 6 months. I interviewed at Meta
Interview
Completed 3 rounds of the process, which includes the initial recruiter screen, technical, full loop, and team matching.
Couldn't move past the full loop interview. The interview was very engaging, and I actually enjoyed working through the cases. No crazy questions.
Top companies for "Compensation and Benefits" near you
