Meta Interview Questions

Meta Data Manipulation (SQL/Python) Interview Questions

Practice 1,159 real Meta interview questions for 2026. Covers top categories — Coding & Algorithms, Analytics & Experimentation, Data Manipulation (SQL/Python), Behavioral & Leadership, and System Design — across Software Engineer, Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Engineer, and Product Manager roles. Real questions from actual interviews with detailed solutions. Expect a software-engineering-heavy loop: timed algorithmic coding (trees, arrays, graph/maze problems, delimiter/CSV parsing), system-design prompts like leaderboards, flight search and online-judge architectures, and an increasingly common AI-assisted coding round that mirrors real workflows. Data Scientist rounds emphasize product analytics and experimentation—designing tests, diagnosing spend drops and bots, evaluating unconnected content, and writing SQL for multi-account, seller, and vehicle metrics. Machine Learning Engineer questions skew toward recommender and ranking work (place and friend recommendation, sparse-matrix ops, linear-regression derivations, newsfeed dislike models). Data Engineers focus on data modeling, ETL, capacity calculations, reservations/utilization queries, and production SQL/Python tasks. For interview preparation, prioritize timed coding practice, system-design templates, rigorous SQL drills (joins/CTEs/aggregation), clear A/B-testing frameworks, and concise STAR behavioral stories tied to measurable impact.

1.2k Questions 1 Company07.06.2026
Showing 20 results
Role
Meta logo
Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Describe Handling Unexpected Changes and Data-Driven Conflicts

Describe Handling Unexpected Changes and Data-Driven Conflicts This behavioral interview prompt assesses cultural fit, ownership, communication, adapt...

Behavioral & Leadership
28
0
122 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
Meta logo
Meta
Easy
Data Scientist

Calculate Expected Impressions and Probability for Users

Expected Impressions From Random Ad Allocation There are X distinct users and Y ad impressions. Each impression is assigned independently and uniforml...

Statistics & Math
17
0
57 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
Meta logo
Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Determining the optimal ad load in News Feed

Determining the Optimal Ad Load in News Feed You are asked to set a data-driven threshold for ad frequency, where ad load means the number of ads show...

Analytics & Experimentation
22
0
74 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
Meta logo
Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Interpreting confidence intervals to choose a treatment

Feed-ranking Tweaks: Interpret Confidence Intervals and Choose a Treatment You ran online experiments for three feed-ranking tweaks. The primary metri...

Analytics & Experimentation
13
0
78 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Resolve Conflicts and Clarify Goals in Data Projects

Behavioral Interview: Conflict, Ambiguity, and Critical Feedback You are interviewing for a data-focused role. The interviewer is assessing collaborat...

Behavioral & Leadership
20
0
66 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Determine Metrics to Evaluate Notification Impact on Users

Determine Metrics to Evaluate Notification Impact on Users Facebook sends several types of push notifications and is considering a new notification th...

Analytics & Experimentation
14
0
43 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Analyze User Transfer Distribution in Initial Launch Period

Analyze User Transfer Distribution in an Initial Launch Period A new peer-to-peer payments feature has launched. You are asked to analyze the number o...

Statistics & Math
26
0
62 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Determine Group Call Feature Need and Evaluation Methods

Determine Need and Evaluation Methods for Group Calling You are the product analyst for a messaging platform considering a group-calling feature. You ...

Analytics & Experimentation
94
0
260 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Implement Clustered Sampling to Mitigate Network Effects in Testing

Implement Clustered Sampling to Mitigate Network Effects in Testing You are planning an A/B test for a new recommendation algorithm in a networked pro...

Analytics & Experimentation
24
0
99 people solved
Jul 12, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer

Describe a failed project and lessons learned

Describe a project you worked on that ultimately failed or did not meet its goals. Explain: - What the project was trying to achieve and your role. - ...

Behavioral & Leadership
2
0
37 people solved
Dec 8, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist Locked

Count Recent High-Volume Call Users

This question evaluates SQL data manipulation and analytical querying skills, including time-window filtering, joins between user and call tables, rol...

Data Manipulation (SQL/Python)
24
1
156 people solved
Mar 14, 2026
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist Locked

Should WhatsApp Launch Group Calls?

This question evaluates product analytics and experimentation skills, specifically defining north-star, primary, guardrail and diagnostic metrics from...

Analytics & Experimentation
10
0
80 people solved
Mar 14, 2026
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist Locked

Assess Demand for Group Video Chat

This question evaluates skills in product analytics, causal inference from observational data, demand estimation, survey design, and executive-level s...

Analytics & Experimentation
7
0
77 people solved
Mar 14, 2026
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer

Implement string and basic ML algorithms

You are given three implementation tasks that mix algorithms and basic machine learning models. --- Task 1: Longest substring with all distinct charac...

Coding & Algorithms
5
0
64 people solved
Dec 8, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Product Manager

Dog-Walking Marketplace & Architecture

Design a Dog-Walking Marketplace App Design a two-sided marketplace that connects dog owners who need walks with vetted dog walkers who provide them. ...

Product / Decision Making
4
0
41 people solved
Jul 4, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Product Manager

Parking-Spot Finder on Google Maps

Product Design Prompt: Parking-Spot Finder Integrated with Google Maps Design a parking-spot finder feature integrated into Google Maps. Address: 1. T...

Product / Decision Making
7
0
62 people solved
Jul 4, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist Locked

Investigate Falling Brand-Ad Spend

This question evaluates competency in data analysis, anomaly detection, causal inference, and diagnostic reasoning related to advertising performance,...

Analytics & Experimentation
2
0
54 people solved
Mar 12, 2026
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer AI Locked

Solve array, tree, and maze problems

This question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving across arrays, binary trees, and grid pathfinding, testing competencies in array traversal and vis...

Coding & Algorithms
5
0
53 people solved
Mar 12, 2026
Meta logo
Meta
Hard
Software EngineerSenior+

Design a secure ML data platform

System Design: Secure, Ethical, Multi‑Tenant ML Data and Inference Platform Context Design a cloud-based ML platform used by multiple internal product...

ML System Design
5
0
40 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Meta logo
Meta
Hard
Software Engineer

Design input validation and error handling

Design Task: API, Validation, and Error Handling for a Top-K Frequency Service Context Design a production-grade service that, given an array of eleme...

System Design
4
0
48 people solved
Sep 6, 2025

Frequently Asked Questions

How difficult are Meta interview questions?
Meta interview questions span a wide difficulty range because they must screen candidates from entry to senior levels across many functions. Expect coding rounds to map to medium-to-hard algorithmic problems that appear in top 100 problem lists for software engineers, and expect data roles to face challenging SQL, experiment diagnosis, and product-analytics problems that require clean metric definitions. Machine learning roles emphasize recommendation and ranking tradeoffs and model complexity, while data engineers encounter large-scale ETL and modeling puzzles. Difficulty scales with level: entry hires see clearer, bounded problems; senior hires face ambiguous tradeoffs and system-wide thinking.
What is Meta's interview process and where do these questions appear?
Meta typically runs a multi-stage process: recruiter screen, one or two technical screens or an online assessment, a full loop of onsite-style interviews, then debrief, committee review, and offer. The full loop mixes coding, system or product design, role-specific technical rounds, and behavioral interviews. Software-engineer candidates spend most time on coding and design; data scientists focus on SQL, experimentation, and product analytics; machine-learning engineers see modeling and recommendation design; data engineers handle SQL, data modeling, and pipeline questions; PMs get product-design and analytics probes. In 2025–2026 some teams pilot AI-enabled coding rounds.
How should I structure a preparation timeline for a Meta interview?
A focused six-week plan works well: weeks one and two cover fundamentals—data structures, algorithms, SQL basics, and experiment design; weeks three and four emphasize timed problem practice, mock phone screens, and role-specific cases (A/B diagnosis for data scientists, model design for MLEs, ETL modeling for data engineers); week five concentrates on system or product design and behavioral storytelling; week six is for full mock loops, timing, and refining communication. Practice with realistic tools, simulate loop pacing, and schedule a debrief after each mock to iterate on clarity, edge-case handling, and time management.
Which technical subtopics are most commonly tested for each role at Meta?
For Data Scientist interviews the recurring technical themes are product-metric definition, diagnosing experiment and spend drops, counting multi-account interactions, SQL for multi-entity metrics, and ranking or recommendation evaluation such as shop ad ranking. Software-engineer questions frequently focus on timestamped state and versioned systems, leaderboards and ranking, maze/graph traversal and tree/array transforms, delimiter and CSV parsing, and scalable search or flight-search style designs. Machine-learning engineers see place and friend recommendation design, sparse-matrix operations, ranking/loss choices, and feed dislike or personalization models. Data engineers repeatedly face entity modeling for feed and booking data, SQL analytics for utilization and reservations, and capacity-aware aggregation challenges.
What standout tips and common pitfalls should I watch for in Meta interviews?
Start interviews by clarifying requirements and expected outputs, then propose measurable success metrics; this prevents misaligned solutions. For coding, think aloud, handle edge cases, state complexity up front, and write a couple of quick tests. In design rounds quantify load, storage, and tradeoffs rather than vague features. Data roles must define metrics, guardrails, and experiment assumptions before jumping to analysis; common pitfalls are ambiguous metric definitions, peeking at tests, and ignoring instrumentation limits. For AI-assisted coding rounds, use the assistant to accelerate boilerplate but validate logic and corner cases yourself. Finish each answer with a concise summary of impact and tradeoffs.

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