Meta Internship Team Match Survey
I just received a team matching survey for my upcoming Meta internship and had a few questions.
- What is the main difference between "Product Infra" and "Infra Platform"? Both seem to relate to backend API development, but is there anything specific I should be aware of?
- Is "Web Product" mainly frontend development, or is there also some backend work with APIs?
- Are there any specific orgs you would recommend I indicate preference (or avoid) as an intern?
I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts.
Discussion
(7 comments)- 0
a month agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroWhat is the main difference between "Product Infra" and "Infra Platform"? Both seem to relate to backend API development, but is there anything specific I should be aware of?
"Product Infra" is infra that's closer to product, i.e. directly tied to a certain product. Here's an example:
- How ads work in Instagram is the mobile client requests a bunch of ads from the server
- The ads can be injected among the organic content in certain ways (every 1/2/3 organic content items, back-to-back, dynamic based on how long the user spends on an organic item, etc)
- This logic is very complicated (it can get even more so if you have ad load experiments), so it was abstracted away into an ads injector module built by the ads product infra team
- As you can see, this code doesn't relate to how the ads look directly (i.e. product work), but it is exclusively relevant to ads
I worked with those engineers. And this code was written on mobile (Android/iOS). So infra also doesn't automatically mean back-end.
An example of "Infra Platform" is you work on the core ImageView widget used to load any image across Instagram, and your goal is to make it as fast/reliable/observable as possible.
Is "Web Product" mainly frontend development, or is there also some backend work with APIs?
Probably mostly front-dev dev. It's risky to have an intern go full-stack.
Are there any specific orgs you would recommend I indicate preference (or avoid) as an intern?
Anything that doesn't sound interesting to you. There are good orgs and bad orgs, but the intern survey doesn't give you enough granularity to choose. Intern manager quality varies wildly.
- 0
a month agoHelpful TarodactylTaro CommunityWow, really appreciate the detailed examples!!
If I have significant experience working on backend/database of full stack applications, would Product Infra likely be a better fit?
- 0a month agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Wow, really appreciate the detailed examples!!
If I have significant experience working on backend/database of full stack applications, would Product Infra likely be a better fit?
Not really. Like I said, product infra can be any tech stack (at least based on how the term worked when I was at Meta).
If you have mainly worked on back-end, the main thing is to pick back-end (if that's possible).
- 0a month agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
I have never actually seen the Meta intern team match survey (though I have heard about it a lot obviously).
Can you attach the exact questions/options from the survey into your original post? That would be really helpful to me.
- 0a month agoHelpful TarodactylTaro Community
Hi Alex,
Thank you for the clarification! After rereading the survey options and your examples, maybe infra platform might sound like a better fit? My primary backend experience is in Java, and I have not had much exposure to lower-level backend such as networking/storage.
My goal is to work on something I'm more familiar with as I believe it may lead to higher chance of return offer.
Here are the options I am considering:
Product Infra: Building APIs and data models that support products on clients. This is server-side logic that typically involves PHP (or Python for Instagram). Folks in product infra are also passionate about creating end-user value.
Infra Platform: Backend engineer building the platforms that support our product teams: frameworks, APIs, tooling, monitoring, measurement, and performance. The focus is on facilitating the use of infra systems and speeding the development process. Typically uses backend languages (C++/Java/Python/etc) but also may interact with both product infra and infra systems.
Infra Systems: Backend engineer building infrastructure software, preferably at large scale. Familiarity with C/C++/Java. Passionate about performance, scalability, and availability. Areas of focus for infra backend include the following: database systems, operating systems, distributed systems, networking systems, storage systems, performance optimization, computer security, programming languages and compilers.
- 0a month agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Based on what you just shared, Infra Platform seems like the best. Infra Systems is very low-level infra and honestly seems like a horrible place for an intern. The technical complexity there is very high, probably around E5, E4 minimum. The problems faced there, especially at Meta, will be so hard that AI is completely useless.
- 1a month agoHelpful TarodactylTaro Community
Hi Alex,
This is really great advice! I really appreciate all the time you spent helping me better understand the survey options. It saved me a ton of time!
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