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
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Meta
Easy
Data Scientist

Describe resolving conflict and welcoming others

Answer the following behavioral questions with specific examples: 1. How do you make other people feel welcome or included on a team? - Especially ...

Behavioral & Leadership
3
0
33 people solved
Nov 16, 2025
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Meta
Easy
Data Scientist

Design measurement to detect fake accounts

Context You work on a social platform. The only product surface you can rely on is friend requests (sending/receiving/accepting/declining). Assume you...

Analytics & Experimentation
10
1
165 people solved
Nov 16, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer

Design a Coding Contest Platform

Design an online coding contest platform that supports programming competitions, code submission, automated judging, and live leaderboards. The platfo...

System Design
1
0
23 people solved
Mar 17, 2026
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer

Explain your main growth area

What is one of your main growth or development areas right now? Explain: - What specific skill or behavior you are working to improve. - How you ident...

Behavioral & Leadership
4
0
81 people solved
Dec 8, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Design an A/B test for a new shop-ads algorithm

A new ranking/promotion algorithm will change which shop ads are shown (and their order). You are asked: “How do we know if this new algo is good?” De...

Analytics & Experimentation
11
0
77 people solved
Oct 14, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Compare Bayesian and frequentist decisions

A/B Test With Beta–Binomial Posteriors and Decision-Making Under Asymmetric Costs You ran a two-arm A/B test on a binary KPI with independent Beta(1, ...

Statistics & Math
10
0
133 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Choose alternatives when randomization fails

Causal Impact of an Autoloaded Feature Without Clean Randomization Context You need to estimate the causal effect of a new autoloaded feature that is ...

Analytics & Experimentation
3
0
44 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Data Scientist

Design robust group size limiting for calls

Design the admission-control and enforcement algorithm to limit group-call size under real-world race conditions. Constraints: multiple SFU edges in m...

Coding & Algorithms
7
0
53 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Choose and compute recommender evaluation metrics

Restaurant Recommender: Offline Evaluation and Modeling Context: You are scoring p(y=1|x) with logistic regression to predict if a user will engage wi...

Machine Learning
6
0
60 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Decide when CTR falls but revenue rises

Ads-Ranking A/B Test: Decision, Decomposition, Diagnostics, and Exec Readout Context You ran a user-level A/B test of a new ads-ranking model. The tre...

Analytics & Experimentation
8
0
73 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist Locked

Design a restaurant recommender under constraints

This question evaluates a candidate's competency in designing scalable machine learning recommender systems, covering retrieval and ranking architectu...

Machine Learning
4
0
42 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Estimate CTR lift with binomial tests and errors

A/B Test Inference, Peeking, and Multiple Comparisons You run a two-arm A/B test of click-through rate (CTR). - Control: n_c = 10,000,000 impressions,...

Statistics & Math
5
0
80 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Hard
Data Scientist

Lead a product deep dive with quantified impact

Behavioral Product Leadership Prompt (Data Scientist) You are interviewing for a Data Scientist role with a strong focus on product analytics, experim...

Behavioral & Leadership
10
0
103 people solved
Oct 13, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Design a ranking and recommendation system

This question evaluates a candidate's competency in designing end-to-end ranking and recommendation systems, covering candidate generation, ranking, f...

System Design
9
0
63 people solved
Jan 6, 2026
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer

Describe failures, self-reflection, and conflict resolution

Answer the following behavioral prompts with recent examples: 1. Self-reflection / improvement - “In a recent project, where could you have done be...

Behavioral & Leadership
16
0
121 people solved
Jan 6, 2026
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer

Design an online auction platform

Design an Online Auction System Design a scalable, highly available online auction platform where users can list items for auction and other users can...

System Design
3
0
55 people solved
Dec 7, 2025
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Meta
Easy
Data Scientist

Describe a challenging project and work-style conflicts

Question This is the Meta Data Scientist onsite behavioral & leadership round. The anchor prompt is to describe your most challenging recent project e...

Behavioral & Leadership
15
0
100 people solved
Dec 6, 2025
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Meta
Medium
Software Engineer

Describe cross-team collaboration and learning from failure

Answer the following behavioral prompts using specific examples from your experience: 1. Cross-team collaboration: Tell me about a project where you w...

Behavioral & Leadership
2
0
37 people solved
Jan 1, 2026
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Meta
Hard
Machine Learning Engineer

Design nearby place recommendations

Real‑Time Nearby Places Recommendation System Context Design a mobile feature that recommends nearby places (e.g., restaurants, shops, attractions) to...

ML System Design
9
1
116 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Meta logo
Meta
Hard
Software Engineer

Design a price tracking system

Question Design a price tracking system for e-commerce sites (similar to price-history tools such as CamelCamelCamel or Keepa). The system ingests pro...

System Design
12
0
126 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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