• First Contact

First, a recruiter called to confirm. They asked about salary expectations. (Here's where you shouldn't give a number; look for YouTube videos on "how to negotiate your offer" for why.)

The recruiter provided a precise walkthrough of the entire process, along with a lot of material to study and a timeline.

• Create Profile

Next, you create a profile on their recruiting site and confirm your availability for the interview. There's plenty of material to study there, which is even better than LeetCode because you know what to expect.

• First Interview (45 mins, video conference)

• 1 easy problem
• 1 medium problem

I didn't hear anything for a week, so I emailed the recruiter. They responded positively, indicating they liked me and my availability for a second round of interviews. I was then passed to another recruiter.

• Second Interview(s) Round

You have to schedule a full day for the next round.

Interview day: 5 x 45-minute interviews.

• Coding: Two 45-minute video conferences with Senior Engineers from the department I was applying for. Each included one medium and one hard question.
• Behavioral: One 45-minute interview with one of the managers of the organization you're applying to.
• System Design: Two 45-minute interviews with Staff or higher Engineers (8+ years at Facebook).

The recruiter also provided details on how to answer these System Design interviews. Be sure to read those PDFs; they can even give you temporary access to some practice sites.

• Resolution

I interviewed on a Friday. On Monday, the recruiter told me they would review the application during the week and let me know. On Wednesday, they informed me my application was still under review and asked for a day to talk, which we agreed would be Thursday.

On Thursday, I was super ready to employ my negotiation skills, as I was certain I was going to get an offer (otherwise, why wouldn't they have told me on Monday?).

Sadly, the call was to inform me that I wasn't selected and that I could reapply within six months.

Overall Process:

Everybody was super kind and welcoming. 10/10, I will apply again.

The recruiters were excellent and knew their stuff. They were super transparent, telling me what to expect and providing all sorts of resources.

I studied for two weeks, for three hours every day for the coding portion, and it still seems it wasn't enough. A colleague of mine said they studied for six months and got the job.

So, my recommendations:

• Study hard and seriously (I know this is difficult if you already have a job).
• Learn the process for solving questions by heart. Facebook provides at least two 30+ minute videos on what a successful coding session interview looks like.
• The code doesn't even have to compile. Most of the time, it's okay if you say, "Here, I'll create a validate(input) function that does XYZ, and the interviewer is okay with that." Don't waste time typing out how you get a sublist or something; just call "sublist = sublist(arr, i, j, etc)."
• Learn Big O notation by heart; it's not that hard.
• Listen to the interviewer. Unfortunately, in my case, I was listening but couldn't come up with an answer. "How would you improve this part here?" Me: "Uhh, well, I would..." (says something not really relevant).
• On System Design, focus on the core concepts, the relevant parts of the problem, not so much on the scaffolding.
• Rehearse your behavioral answers with another person. The first time I practiced, I was just rambling. After a few rounds, I was able to answer concisely and favorably (again, the recruiter tells you to follow the STAR method).
• I'd say spend 40% on coding interviews, 35% on System Design (gosh, I choked trying to multiply 50k users x 1 million users x days x years), and 25% on behavioral.

I see a lot of people complaining about LeetCode-type questions, but they give you a guide with at least 20 problems, they explain thoroughly how to solve them, and they give you a lot of time to practice. If you can't learn that, maybe you'll struggle in the real job.

Signed NDA.

But read the description for an idea.