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Design a Short-Video Recommendation System

Last updated: Mar 29, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates competency in designing large-scale short-video recommendation systems, including machine learning model selection, candidate generation and ranking, real-time personalization, feedback signal design, evaluation metrics, latency and scalability constraints, cold-start handling, exploration–exploitation trade-offs, and safety/abuse controls. It is commonly asked in the ML system design domain to assess system-level machine learning engineering and product-aware architectural thinking, and it combines conceptual understanding with practical application by requiring both high-level trade-off reasoning and concrete serving and evaluation considerations.

  • medium
  • Meta
  • ML System Design
  • Machine Learning Engineer

Design a Short-Video Recommendation System

Company: Meta

Role: Machine Learning Engineer

Category: ML System Design

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Design an end-to-end recommendation system for a short-video feed product. The system serves a large user base and must choose and rank videos for each user session with low latency. Discuss the product goal, training data and feedback signals, candidate generation, ranking, real-time personalization, cold start for new users and new creators, exploration vs. exploitation, online serving architecture, safety and abuse controls, and how you would evaluate the system offline and online.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates competency in designing large-scale short-video recommendation systems, including machine learning model selection, candidate generation and ranking, real-time personalization, feedback signal design, evaluation metrics, latency and scalability constraints, cold-start handling, exploration–exploitation trade-offs, and safety/abuse controls. It is commonly asked in the ML system design domain to assess system-level machine learning engineering and product-aware architectural thinking, and it combines conceptual understanding with practical application by requiring both high-level trade-off reasoning and concrete serving and evaluation considerations.

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Meta
Feb 28, 2026, 12:00 AM
Machine Learning Engineer
Technical Screen
ML System Design
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Design an end-to-end recommendation system for a short-video feed product. The system serves a large user base and must choose and rank videos for each user session with low latency. Discuss the product goal, training data and feedback signals, candidate generation, ranking, real-time personalization, cold start for new users and new creators, exploration vs. exploitation, online serving architecture, safety and abuse controls, and how you would evaluate the system offline and online.

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