Interview Experiences

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

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13 stories

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MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Jul 2026

Four-Round Onsite, Rejected After Two AI Coding Rounds

I applied online to a search/ads/recommendation MLE role. The onsite was four rounds in total: behavioral, system design, and two rounds of AI coding. The behavioral round was just everyday questions, and the system design was a recommendation system. For coding, one question was a triple card game and the other was the maximum number of unique characters, both of them questions you can find onli…

RejectedOnsite0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Meta Machine Learning Engineer interview: paperwork after technical rounds

The technical rounds were not the main issue for me. A friendly, detailed recruiter screen covered the role and its expectations, then I moved into familiar LeetCode-style coding interviews with screen sharing. The coding itself did not feel unfair. I handled the problems and kept the normal pace while explaining my approach. Even so, I did not get an offer, and the reason I heard was paperwork r…

Technical Screen0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Meta Machine Learning Engineer interview with a conversational-assistant design and declined offer

The process dragged on longer than I expected. It felt drawn out from the early weeks onward. I went through screenings on core ML knowledge, including attention and its variants, before later stages shifted into more high-pressure technical work. Onsite day was intense and tightly structured. In the system-design round, I had to build a conversational assistant and include safety measures. That…

OfferOnsite0
MetaMachine Learning EngineerSenior+
Mar 2026

New AI-Coding Round on Compiler Optimization

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In progressOnsiteXP0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Feb 2026

Two Coding Rounds, Strong System Design, Rejected Anyway

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
MetaMachine Learning EngineerSenior+
Feb 2026

Full Onsite Recap, Then Layoffs Hit Right After

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OnsiteXP0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Feb 2026

Even Claude Opus Can't One-Shot the AI Coding Round

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Technical ScreenXP0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Jan 2026

Onsite Loop With ML System Design, BQ, and an AI-Enabled Coding Round

ML system design: One question was a common one — nearby place recommendation for mobile users who might be on the move. The other one I hadn't seen before — notification ranking. These notifications come from various products, like new product announcements, friends' new updates, and ads served by advertisers, and so on. BQ: Right off the bat they had me talk about my most proud project. Then th…

Onsite0
MetaMachine Learning EngineerSenior+
Jan 2026

A Four-Round London E5 Onsite, Then a Wait for Headcount

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In progressOnsiteXP0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Jan 2026

Four Onsite Rounds, Downleveled to E4

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OfferOnsiteXP0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Dec 2025

Onsite Loop Ends in a Downgrade Pass

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OfferOnsiteXP0
MetaMachine Learning Engineer
Oct 2025

A Robot Room Cleaner API Variant

Meta recruiters often say they won't ask hard questions, but there are still interviewers who ask hard problems or hard variants. Robot Room Cleaner API variant. Recording the core approach and the easy-to-miss details here for anyone who needs it. Problem summary The map is unknown, boundaries are unknown You can only interact with the environment through the robot API: move() turnLeft() / turnR…

Onsite0
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

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.

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