Meta

Software Engineer Interview Experience - Menlo Park, California

July 1, 2013

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

Phone screen - Coding questions were solved over the phone, using an online shared document.
On-site interview - A day of five interviews, each 45 minutes long. This included two whiteboard coding interviews, one personality interview (e.g., how do you face conflicts at work), and one system architecture interview (high-level system design).
Offer process - My recruiter was very helpful.

Questions

Design a system to recommend "People you may know" to every person using the service.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 359 interview experiences for the Meta Software Engineer role in Menlo Park, California.

Success Rate

28%

Pass Rate

Meta's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Menlo Park, California is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive69%

Neutral18%

Negative13%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Meta's Software Engineer interview process in Menlo Park, California.

Meta Work Experiences

Intense Growth, Demanding Culture

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

November 11, 2024

Pros: This place turned me into who I am today, no cap. Seriously intense engineering culture, but I learned a lot and now I can transfer teams.

Cons: Sometimes stressful. Not a great work-life balance.

Intense Growth, Demanding Culture

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

November 11, 2024

Pros: This place turned me into who I am today, no cap. Seriously intense engineering culture, but I learned a lot and now I can transfer teams.

Cons: Sometimes stressful. Not a great work-life balance.

Good, but still a job

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

Pros: Well-known perks are awesome (food, medical, etc.). A lot of smart people and fun things to do if you find the time, bragging rights, and the ability to escalate friends' problems with FB.

Cons: High pressure to perform. Focus on impact means that even doing a good job on a project doesn't mean you would be commended. Review feedback cycles are a drain. There is zero appreciation for quality, bug fixing, or assisting others. Engineers are only assessed by new features that can be shown to provide measurable impact to a metric that management cares about. The codebase is messy due to a lot of people, especially inexperienced ones, moving fast.

Good, but still a job

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

Pros: Well-known perks are awesome (food, medical, etc.). A lot of smart people and fun things to do if you find the time, bragging rights, and the ability to escalate friends' problems with FB.

Cons: High pressure to perform. Focus on impact means that even doing a good job on a project doesn't mean you would be commended. Review feedback cycles are a drain. There is zero appreciation for quality, bug fixing, or assisting others. Engineers are only assessed by new features that can be shown to provide measurable impact to a metric that management cares about. The codebase is messy due to a lot of people, especially inexperienced ones, moving fast.

Toxic Environment, Poor Management

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

Pros: Free meals, 401k match 100%.

Cons: toxic environment, no WLB, managers wont give proper feedback

Toxic Environment, Poor Management

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

Pros: Free meals, 401k match 100%.

Cons: toxic environment, no WLB, managers wont give proper feedback

Intense Growth, Demanding Culture

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

November 11, 2024

Pros: This place turned me into who I am today, no cap. Seriously intense engineering culture, but I learned a lot and now I can transfer teams.

Cons: Sometimes stressful. Not a great work-life balance.

4.0
Intense Growth, Demanding Culture
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Menlo Park, California, United States
November 11, 2024
Pros: This place turned me into who I am today, no cap. Seriously intense engineering culture, but I learned a lot and now I can transfer teams.
Cons: Sometimes stressful. Not a great work-life balance.

Good, but still a job

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

Pros: Well-known perks are awesome (food, medical, etc.). A lot of smart people and fun things to do if you find the time, bragging rights, and the ability to escalate friends' problems with FB.

Cons: High pressure to perform. Focus on impact means that even doing a good job on a project doesn't mean you would be commended. Review feedback cycles are a drain. There is zero appreciation for quality, bug fixing, or assisting others. Engineers are only assessed by new features that can be shown to provide measurable impact to a metric that management cares about. The codebase is messy due to a lot of people, especially inexperienced ones, moving fast.

4.0
Good, but still a job
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Menlo Park, California, United States
August 2, 2016
Pros: Well-known perks are awesome (food, medical, etc.). A lot of smart people and fun things to do if you find the time, bragging rights, and the ability to escalate friends' problems with FB.
Cons: High pressure to perform. Focus on impact means that even doing a good job on a project doesn't mean you would be commended. Review feedback cycles are a drain. There is zero appreciation for quality, bug fixing, or assisting others. Engineers are only assessed by new features that can be shown to provide measurable impact to a metric that management cares about. The codebase is messy due to a lot of people, especially inexperienced ones, moving fast.

Toxic Environment, Poor Management

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Menlo Park, California, United States

Pros: Free meals, 401k match 100%.

Cons: toxic environment, no WLB, managers wont give proper feedback

1.0
Toxic Environment, Poor Management
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Menlo Park, California, United States
April 3, 2025
Pros: Free meals, 401k match 100%.
Cons: toxic environment, no WLB, managers wont give proper feedback

Meta Interview Questions

Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses

Given a string with parentheses, determine the minimum number of parentheses you must remove to make the string valid. A valid string has balanced and properly nested parentheses.

StringsStacksTwo Pointers

Valid Word Abbreviation

Determine if a given abbreviation is valid for a given word. An abbreviation can contain digits representing the number of skipped characters.

StringsTwo Pointers

Binary Tree Vertical Order Traversal

Traverse a binary tree and return a list of node values for each vertical line, ordered from left to right. Nodes on the same vertical line should be ordered from top to bottom.

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