I applied online and got through the loop last week.

The recruiter call was 30 minutes and not just logistics. She also asked a couple of basic SQL and Python questions and locked in my coding language, which matters more than it sounds because the level she sets is what you're graded against for the rest of it.

The technical screen is the one people underestimate. It was 60 minutes, with 25 minutes of SQL then 25 minutes of Python in a plain CoderPad with no autocomplete, and they move fast. The questions are not hard individually, but there's no time to think. If you pause on a join, you're already behind.

The onsite was three technical rounds at an hour each. I went in expecting one SQL round, one modelling round, etc., based on what I'd read, and that was wrong. It's the same interview three times on a different product scenario: 10 minutes of product sense, then modelling, then SQL, then Python, all building on whatever you just said. One of my scenarios wasn't even a Meta product. The modelling part got the most follow-ups, mostly on why I picked certain dimension types. I didn't get an ownership round; the recruiter said that's usually for higher levels. Then there was the hiring committee and team match, which took a couple of weeks.

My prep was StrataScratch on a timer because speed is very important, and I skimmed Meta's last quarterly results to see which metrics they actually track. One of those came up directly in product sense. I did a mock interview with a Meta DE on Prepfully in the full stack format, and his main comment was that I designed tables before asking what the product needed, so my schema was clean but answered the wrong question. That one line fixed my onsite.