I was originally contacted by a recruiter over LinkedIn.
The process began with a phone interview, followed by a visit to a Facebook recruiting event where I met with an engineer in-person. This was followed by another phone screen, and then an on-site interview in Palo Alto with four members of the engineering staff.
The whole process seemed somewhat disorganized. I was informed after my recruiting event visit that I would be getting an on-site as the next step, but was told a couple of days later that I'd have to do another phone screen first.
The questions in the screens and the on-site seemed reasonable enough. I'll admit to having somewhat of an off-day at the on-site. I completely fumbled the "are there any bugs in your code" question with at least one of the interviewers. I said there weren't, but there was a pretty obvious bug once he described the failure mode to me.
There was a scheduling mix-up with at least one of my interviewers, which caused my time with him to be cut short. I'm sure that didn't help him get a good feel for me for the sake of his interview feedback.
The culture seems a bit more corporate than the recruiting buzz might put forward. It seems geared toward people who want to have one foot in the startup pond while having the other firmly planted on the dry land of a large, relatively safe organization. There are a lot of small teams, and the reflection I got is that there is a non-negligible amount of bureaucracy weighing on the organization. I guess when you get to 1000 people, that will happen.
The office space is a mostly open floor plan, and the gear the developers are provided to work on is really good stuff.
But that's an initial impression, and things are not always as they appear.
So, yeah, weirdness in the interview scheduling and such dragged down my impression, but I'd probably give the dice another roll if the chance comes up again. If nothing else, it will allow me a second glimpse to either bolster or contradict my first impressions.
Are there any bugs in your code?
The following metrics were computed from 78 interview experiences for the Meta Software Engineer role in Palo Alto, California.
Meta's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Palo Alto, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Candidates reported having good feelings for Meta's Software Engineer interview process in Palo Alto, California.