Read the 6-page document that Facebook gives to senior developer candidates to prepare them for the technical interview
Jeff Chiu / Associated press
- A Facebook tech interview guide shared with Insider shows how the company prepares candidates.
- The guide, created for a senior software developer role, breaks down the process into 60 minutes.
- The technical interview includes a 35-minute technical part for two coding questions.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Meta, formerly Facebook, is hiring heavily, although its ongoing scandals show signs of deteriorating employee retention rates.
The company wants to attract 10,000 applicants to develop its vision for the metaverse, and beyond, the social media giant is aggressively adding to its employee base of 58,000 people to build apps and services like WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus. .
A paper obtained by Insider provides insight into how the social network conducts the tech interview, the first major hurdle applicants face to get hired – showing how seriously Meta and Facebook take talent scouting. You can read the full document below. Meta declined to comment for this story.
Several developers told Insider that Facebook, and Meta in general, have a reputation for having one of the most rigorous interview processes in the industry, along with some of the highest pay offerings. The entire Meta interview process would typically span four to eight weeks, with around seven interviews, technical salary database Levels.fyi reported.
The technical interview comes after the candidate makes a pre-screening call with a recruiter to discuss their resume, experience, preferred coding languages, side projects, and overall professional history. If this goes well, the candidate goes to the technical interview.
The six-page document, which is shared with senior developer candidates, advised the candidate to carefully study the guide before their interview. He said that even “the most experienced engineers need to prepare and train” in order to avoid appearing underqualified while solving problems under tight deadlines.
While the legal entity itself is now known as Meta, the document only referred to Facebook, which is now technically a subsidiary of the new parent organization. The document is shared with applicants prior to their initial interview, but otherwise it is not widely available.
The guide showed that the initial technical screening was 60 minutes long and covered topics such as technical leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and coding skills.
The interview itself begins with behavioral questions, which, suggested by the guide, might sound like “Tell me about a successful initiative you worked on that required collaboration between teams”. And while the role of Senior Software Engineer at Facebook does not involve people management, the company still asks the candidate to prepare to discuss any leadership experience, which may include planning a roadmap. , the resolution of cross-functional conflicts and the definition of a technical direction.
The next part focuses on the technical sense, the candidate has 35 minutes to solve two coding problems. This suggests that Facebook has gone beyond the wickedly tough job interview questions companies like Google were famous for, but applicants should always expect a challenge.
“Don’t be surprised if the questions seem artificial,” the guide said. “The problems may be different from those you probably face in your day-to-day work. We will not ask a “puzzle” question, but the questions may be different from real world questions because they need to be described and answered. in 10-20 minutes. “
The guide said the interviewer would ask the candidate to show off their work, rather than just letting them dive into the code. The company expects candidates to be able to discuss why and how they chose their approach to solve each problem, including explaining the logic behind the code itself.
To prepare for the coding interview, the guide recommended that the candidate “set aside time each day” to practice. The document showed that Facebook uses the CoderPad.io platform to present candidates with their coding challenges in remote interviews, and it uses a physical whiteboard for in-person interviews. The guide suggested that candidates practice with both before the technical interview.
Assuming the candidate passes this step, Levels.fyi indicated that candidates will go through multiple rounds of interviews, which may vary from team to team. These additional interviews can focus on cultural fit, design philosophy, or even other coding challenges.