I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Meta (Seattle, WA) in Jul 2016
Interview
I was solicited by FB recruiter through LinkedIn. I followed up given my perception of FB being fast pace and open culture. After PS, I went on-site which contains the standard 5 rounds: behavioral & culture fit; coding; coding; design; design.
I was never a fan of behavioral questions and never felt such questions are inspirational, FB is no difference. There was a quick 10-minute coding problem near the end of this round --- you have no time to think but just to code it up. The first coding problem is simple but a little tedious to write code. The second coding problem is medium difficulty with two parts. The first part is simple and I quickly code it. I had to think about the second part to identify the algorithm but had no time to implement it.
In both design rounds, despite the interviewer’s claim that the problem is opened-ended without perfect answer, and what’s important is the thought process, he didn’t really mean it --- a solution that perfectly matches what the interviewer had in mind is expected. The interviewer, graduated from school a few years back, does not have rich project experiences to handle deviations from his standard solution. The interviewer simply likes to move fast on the track of his solution. Any deviation from that track becomes a distraction instead of part of true problem solving process.
Overall I am disappointed with FB interview process. The FB interview loop obviously not really evaluate and identify true problem solving skills or experiences but just how fast you can write bug-free code for simple algorithm problem with little or no time to think. It effectively requires that you have coded the same or very similar problem very recently. I am confident on my coding and problem solving skills and like to present the daily true me instead of an interview-prepared me.
FB hires lots of young graduates and expect them to write fast code. Maybe coding fast and breaking things is fine for web pages, but I suspect how terrible their back-end infrastructure would be due to the code fast mentality.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
behavioral questions;
simple to medium algorithm questions;
design questions;
recruiter was efficient and helpful, the interview was over the phone with a technical female, she was not that friendly.
typical questions, that are good for someone that just graduated, they give you material to prepare but for someone that is busy as me, is difficult to find time for it. it doesn't measure the experience that you have with software development as myself coding on c++, java, python for the last 17 years and successfully delivered applications on different industries
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
typical questions of algorithm and optimization, they look for the best answer with the best performance
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Meta (Menlo Park, CA) in May 2016
Interview
Recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn. We set up initial telephonic chat. Followed by two telephonic interviews. Both were coding and Algorithms related. I didn't do well with first one, I got feedback saying I was slow in providing response. Because of my background they kindly gave me another chance, which I did Ok. Then followed by on site. I wanted to do well in on site so I took a while to prepare and scheduled interview date almost 3 weeks after . I practiced 100+ questions on LeetCode. I also studied large scale system design questions. It's like practice daily 2 hours just for this interview. This is really helped to come up with solutions during on site interview. The on site consists of 2 coding & algorithm questions, 2 design questions and 1 behavior + coding. Except first coding question, because of interviewer poor communication skills, I did n't completely understand what's the problem, in all other rounds I gave my best. After waiting for almost 2 weeks I got a feedback saying they are passing my application. I guess my best is not enough for them. Sometimes even though you prepare well, some factors make you unfit for job, that's a fate. Any case overall I've great experience and get a chance to visit FB campus. As some one mentioned here looks like FB is not giving offers to any SE candidates since Jan 2016 despite people are doing good in interviews. Of course if we think we are doing good that doesn't mean interviewers are also thinking same.