Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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125 stories

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MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

3 of 4 Onsite Rounds Done, Last Round Pushed Two Weeks

I finished 3 out of 4 rounds of my virtual onsite yesterday, so while it's still fresh in my memory, let me share the experience. The reason I only finished 3/4 is that right after the third round, the recruiter told me the final Technical session needed to be rescheduled — it ended up getting pushed two weeks out. Such a slow death (I originally wanted to get through the whole thing in one day,…

In progressOnsite0
MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

Three Rounds Done, Final Technical Session Pushed Two Weeks Out

I finished 3 out of 4 rounds of my virtual onsite yesterday, so while it's still fresh in my memory, let me share my experience. The reason I only finished 3/4 is that after the third round, I found out the recruiter said the final Technical session needs to be rescheduled — it ended up getting pushed two weeks out. Such a slow death (I originally wanted to knock out the whole day in one go, spec…

In progressOnsite0
MetaData Science Manager
Oct 2025

Six VO Rounds, None Matched the Forum's Question Bank

Since I looked at basically all the interview reports for the IC track, most of the time people are just going back and forth between the same cases from the past two years: AR, 4 cases: Restaurant recommendation IG shopping FB group/circle FB vs. IG AE, 4 cases: Fake accounts Fake news Comment distribution Ads inserted into the feed I've already summarized it like this, so go search the specific…

Onsite0
MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

Six VO Rounds, Almost No Forum Case Overlap

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OnsiteXP0
MetaData Scientist
Oct 2025

SQL Case Study on Launching a Notification Feature

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In progressTechnical ScreenXP0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Onsite Loop Sunk by a System Design Round

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaSoftware EngineerSenior+
Oct 2025

Phone Screen Plus a Five-Round VO

I interviewed at Meta at the end of last year. Reading other people's interview reports on this forum helped me a lot, so I'm sharing mine to give back. Phone screen: the first part was the usual behavioral questions, and the second part was two LeetCode problems tagged Easy on Meta's list. VO (virtual onsite): 2 rounds of coding, 2 rounds of system design, and 1 round of BQ. The coding and syste…

Onsite0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Bank System OA, Ran Out of Time on Level 3

This is the old bank system question from the forum. Let me add some details. Level 2 needs to output a string with the account information: {accountId}{amount spent}. For level 3, all transfers and pending transfers are best kept in a map rather than a list, to save time. Level 1: just creating an account, and adding/deducting balance. Level 2: track the n users who transferred out the most mone…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

A Four-Part In-Memory Database OA on CodeSignal

Just finished it, seems like a new OA, I haven't seen this one on the forum before. The first two parts were pretty easy. The third was a bit annoying but manageable. The fourth needed some time. It was on CodeSignal. Implement an in-memory database. This database is basically a double hashmap, something like: The key is user1, user2, the field is age, height, and the value is 12, 180. Step 1: St…

Online Assessment0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Three of Four Levels on the Bank System Question

Bank System. This is an old question that has shown up on the forum before. Level 1: implement the createAccount, deposit, and pay methods. Level 2: find the top N activity, based on the sum of deposit and pay amounts. You just maintain a size-N min-heap with a priority queue. Level 3: When you transfer, you hold the money from the source account; when you accept, it actually moves to the target…

Technical Screen0
MetaData Engineer
Sep 2025

A Confusing Building-Capacity Coding Problem Plus SQL on the Library Schema

Python Questions 1 and 2 are basically the same as the ones posted yesterday. For question 1, I got a follow-up: how do you write it without heapq. For question 2, the log list's true/false values need to alternate, and you also have to consider that a book needs to be checked out before it can be returned — otherwise that's wrong too. Question 3 is a new one I'd never seen before and it's a bit…

Technical Screen0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Sep 2025

GenAI Reorg Chaos Mid-Loop

The whole interview experience was pretty bizarre, moving at the same pace as Zuckerberg's MSL reorg. At the start, it was the GenAI department interviewing me, matched to one specific team. Then they just couldn't get an interview scheduled — it dragged on for over a month. By the time the interview finally got scheduled, GenAI had already been carved out to Alex Wang, so this was one of the mos…

Onsite0
MetaData Engineer
Sep 2025

Onsite Loop: Product Sense, Data Modeling, Python, SQL

Product Sense (10 minutes) Try to keep your answers fairly brief. Prepare 4-6 main metrics and you don't need to explain in much detail why you picked each one, unless you feel the interviewer wants to hear more or they ask directly. Every interviewer's expectations are a little different, but overall I felt they don't dig in that deep, so don't spend too much time preparing for this part. The qu…

Onsite0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Aug 2025

45-Minute SQL and A/B Test Screen for L5 Product Analytics

I've been a statistician for two years, and now I'm trying out DS or quant. In late August, Meta's HR reached out to me for an L5 Product Analytics DS interview. After the HR screen, the first technical round was 45 minutes, with 1 SQL question and 1 product question. The setup: an advertiser has a shop on FB and also has their own website. After FB serves a user an ad, they look at whether the c…

Technical Screen0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Nearest-Duplicate-Within-K, Then a DFS Question I Didn't Finish

The first question was to find the nearest matching numbers in an array, where the index distance needs to be within k. Honestly a pretty simple question — basically just use a map to store value-to-index, then do one pass through the array. The follow-up was how to improve the space complexity. My first thought was that I'd need to clear out the earlier entries in the map, so she had me write th…

Technical Screen0
MetaData Scientist
Aug 2025

Ads Trade-off Questions in the Technical Screen

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Technical ScreenXP0
MetaSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

A Four-Level Bank System OA, Time Crunch on Level 3

Bank System, an old question. Adding some details: Level 2 needs to output a string with the account info: {accountId}{amount paid out}. For level 3, both all-transfers and pending-transfers are better done with a map rather than a list, to save time. Level 1 is just creating an account, and adding to / withdrawing from the balance. Level 2: count the top N users by total amount transferred out —…

Online Assessment0
MetaApplied Scientist
Aug 2025

Sandbox Print Bug Sank the OA, Rejected Anyway

Got an OA, four questions, 90 minutes. It was a banking system. The first question was to write functions for generating accounts, depositing money, transferring money, and so on. The second question was to write a function that sorts all accounts by outgoing transaction volume, then based on an input n, outputs the top n accounts. For example if n=3, you had to output the top three accounts by o…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Aug 2025

Strong on Stats and SQL, Rejected After a Moderate Product Round

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaData ScientistSenior+
Aug 2025

Positive Phone Screen, Killed by Boomerang Leveling Rule

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WithdrewTechnical ScreenXP0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

Share your experience to earn XP