I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Meta (Palo Alto, CA) in Aug 2011
Interview
I have a PhD in computational neuroscience / psychology. The Data Scientist position looked perfect for me because of my interest fitting models to large datasets describing human behavior. The HR person was nice. The interviewer was someone from the data science team-- nice and very young. He had me go up to the white board and write C++ code to answer a few questions. As a PhD, I was expecting research type questions, not coding. So I got a bit nervous. I didn't fully understand all of his questions and he helped me. I left feeling kind of annoyed. It probably wasn't the right job for me because I am not a software engineer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would add new Facebook members to the database of members, and code their relationships to others in the database?
Conversation with recruiter in email. Technical screening round where they ask about SQL and product sense. Onsite-Loop with four rounds. They ask about SQL, Product Sense, Statistics, Behavioural questions. The difficulty is average.
The technical round kicked off with a design question about A/B testing for Facebook Reels, which I found engaging. Then, I tackled a SQL query on user comments and how to account for novelty effects in ongoing experiments. Thankfully, I had prepared with the company-specific questions on PracHub, and it made a real difference in my confidence. The entire process felt smooth, and after some behavioral questions, I received an offer that I happily accepted.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Design an A/B test for a Facebook Reels ranking change and describe how you would interpret the results
Total 7 rounds: first round for resume screening, second for technical screening, then for on-site virtual with 4 interviews back to back, then hiring manager round after team matching and then salary negotiation with HR
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Meta’s evaluation rubrics focus heavily on "Product Thinking over Fancy Math". Interviewers want to see if you can operate like a product owner with an analytical mindset, navigating messy scenarios affecting billions of users