Meta Senior+ Data Engineer Interview Experience — Leadership and Fullstack Phone Screen, Rejected Over 'Not Enough Impact'

From the recruiter to the interviewers, the whole thing gave off an absurd vibe.

I was applying for a senior position, and the job description didn't even list a level at the time. After I applied, the recruiter had me submit my availability directly — no call at all. Once it was scheduled, I was told it would be one Leadership round and one Fullstack round. I thought that was a little strange at the time, but figured it was just some new sweatshop scheduling model, so I didn't think much of it.

Leadership round, 30 minutes, with a middle-aged manager. He focused on project impact and mentorship — for mentorship he asked about how I split up work on a project, things like how you divide tasks and credit. I think I handled it reasonably well. The interviewer smiled the whole time and gave off a positive vibe. It wrapped up quickly.

Fullstack round, 1 hour, with a middle-aged woman interviewer. For Python, it was a simple dictionary problem — find the values that only the current user has and no other user has. The SQL was easy. For metrics, she asked about how you'd measure "monetization" for a gaming company's product — what ideas you'd come up with for a report, and how you'd test whether something broken was actually fixed. For architecture, she just asked me to walk through what steps data goes through from being captured to the end, and how to optimize queries/tables — also pretty basic. I got along well with her.

And then somehow I still got rejected. The recruiter insisted on calling me — where was that energy before? When I asked why, they said project impact wasn't big enough and they weren't satisfied with the mentorship answer. Looking back, I wonder if I was interviewed for the wrong level? The recruiter said the target level was IC6, and even hinted they wouldn't downgrade me and have me interview again... I'm speechless. That interviewer was a two-faced smiler, and the recruiter also didn't do their job by not telling me any of this upfront. I gave them a bad review right back on the survey!

The nicest person through the whole process — and the one I feel worst about — was the Fullstack interviewer. She was very patient and even gave hints. There are good people at Meta too.

Everyone, make sure you communicate clearly with your recruiter ahead of time. If you have any doubts, ask. Otherwise you'll end up screwed over like I was.