Software Engineer
Full Loop
Interview Guide
Welcome to your preparation guide for your interview at Meta! Use the table of contents below
to quickly jump to the section you are looking for. Whether you’re taking your initial screen or
your full loop interview, our Software Engineer leaders and recruiters put together this guide
so you know what to expect and how to prepare. We recognize that interviewing can be
stressful, so we hope this guide provides the information and resources you need. Remember,
your recruiter is there to support you, so please reach out to them with any questions.
What you’ll find in this guide
Accommodations process..................................................................................................................1
Interview process overview...............................................................................................................2
Coding Interview................................................................................................................................. 3
Design Interview................................................................................................................................. 4
Behavioral Interview...........................................................................................................................7
Final tips for your interview.............................................................................................................. 9
Post interview – What to expect...................................................................................................... 9
Appendix / Resources.........................................................................................................................9
Accommodations process
Meta is committed to providing reasonable support (called accommodations) in our recruiting
processes for qualified candidates with disabilities, physical conditions, mental health
conditions, neurodivergence, sincerely held religious beliefs, pregnancy, childbirth, or related
medical conditions, as required by law. If you need assistance or require an accommodation,
reach out via the Accommodations request form.
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Interview process overview
This guide will explain what to expect during your interviews with Meta. As part of your interview, you will have
the opportunity to meet with peers, cross-functional partners, and other leaders at Meta. Your recruiter will be
your guide throughout the process and aim to adequately prepare you to bring your best self to your interview.
What will your interview process be?
Your interview process will include 4 to 6 of 45 minute interviews; each interview will leave a few minutes at the
end for your questions. You can expect the following interviews in the full loop round:
• Coding
• Design
• Behavioral
Video Conference interview best practices
• Make sure you're in a quiet environment.
• Double check that you have a reliable internet/phone connection.
• It's okay to ask the person you're speaking with to speak slowly if you can't catch what they're saying.
• You'll need a laptop with a webcam, speaker, and mic. We recommend using a headset or headphones
with a mic for better quality audio, but this is optional.
• While we embrace the usage of advanced tooling in our day-to-day work to build the future of social
connection, we ask that you not use any unauthorized outside assistance during interviews. Throughout
the interview process you may be asked to share your screen via Zoom. Here you can find guidance on
how this works. Additionally, we ask that you disable and not use filters during your interview. This will
help us get an understanding of how you approach problem-solving and coding independently. Outside
assistance includes, but is not limited to, consulting external resources, seeing help from others, or using
AI tools, like ChatGPT.
● For your interview, ensure Zoom screen sharing is enabled in advance, as setup may require a few
minutes. Here's how: Enable Zoom screen share.
● A filter is considered any tool/feature that applies visual effects to your video feed, including
virtual/blurred background.
Interview Dress Code
As you’re probably aware, we promote a casual environment at Meta so that everyone can be their authentic
selves. Formal dress is not required (jeans are definitely ok!). Dress comfortably. We care about what you can do,
not what you wear.
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Coding Interview
What can you expect?
The interview focuses heavily on coding. You’ll be assessed on how you solved the problem as well as the
structure and style of your code. It’s best to avoid bugs, but the interviewer will not compile your code so don’t
worry about making minor mistakes. Finding and catching bugs in your code is a positive sign!
Additionally, they’ll want to hear your thought process throughout, so be sure to provide a narrative as you go
through the code. You’re welcome to code in whatever language you feel most comfortable, but choosing one
that is going to assist in getting an optimal solution in the most speedy and efficient manner is key. Please
confirm the coding language preference with your recruiter.
What do we look for?
Your interviewer will be thinking about how your skills and experience might help Meta as well as how you tackle
problems you’re not as familiar with. In your coding interview, your interviewer will assess your performance on 4
focus areas:
• Focus Area 1: Communication: Are you asking for requirements and clarity when necessary, or are you just
diving into the code? Your coding interview should be a conversation, so don’t forget to ask questions.
• Focus Area 2: Problem solving: We’re evaluating how you comprehend and explain complex ideas. Are you
providing the reasoning behind a particular solution? Developing and comparing multiple solutions? Using
appropriate data structures? Speaking about space and time complexity? Optimizing your solution?
• Focus Area 3: Coding: Can you convert solutions to executable code? Is the code organized and does it
capture the right logical structure?
• Focus Area 4: Verification: Are you considering a reasonable number of test cases or coming up with a
good argument for why your code is correct? If your solution has bugs, are you able to walk through your
own logic to find them and explain what the code is doing?
How to prep
Interviewers can only assess your skills and abilities based on what you show them during your interview, so it’s
important to plan and prepare to best showcase your strengths. As you begin preparing, please reference your
Career Profile for additional role-specific prep materials, if available.
As you begin preparing, please reference your Career Profile for additional rolespecific prep materials. We use
many different coding languages at Meta so practice in the coding language that you are most confident in.
Scripting languages tend to be easier to use in coding interviews, but stick with a language you are comfortable
with rather than attempting to learn a new one.
You should expect to solve about two problems in the course of about 40 minutes. When you have a solution, be
sure to review it. Make sure that it’s correct, that you’ve considered the edge cases, that it’s efficient, and that it
clearly reflects the ideas that you’re trying to express in your code.
In addition to reviewing the above information, these tips may be helpful as you prepare:
• Schedule time to study and practice. Block out time every day to write code. You’ll need to practice
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writing code without executing it - without the help of a compiler and debugger. This will simulate a timed
interview environment. There are several resources available in the Preparation Hub within your Career
Profile including coding puzzles and practice interviews.
• Prioritize breadth over depth. It’s much better to practice solving fewer example problems of many
problem types than to become very familiar with one type at the expense of the others.
• Think about different algorithms and algorithmic techniques (e.g., iteration, sorting, divide-and-conquer,
recursion). We do not ask dynamic programming questions so don’t spend time prepping for that
technique and focus your efforts elsewhere
• Think about data structures, particularly the ones used most often. For instance, array, stack (or queues),
hashtable, trees (including specialized trees like binary trees and binary search trees), graphs, and heaps.
• Analyze the problem and make sure that you fully understand it before jumping in. It’s OK to ask
clarifying questions during the interview to ensure you understand the exact problem you are trying to
solve. Also, breaking down the problem into smaller pieces can be helpful.
• Get comfortable with the medium you’ll use in the interview. In other words, try writing code with just a
plain text editor with no compiler, linter, syntax highlighter, autocomplete, and so on. Please also practice
talking through the problem before you start coding. Your interviewer will be evaluating how you explore
the problem space and weigh different possible solutions so it’s crucial to help the interviewer
understand your choices.
• Keep things simple. If you find the solution getting excessively complex, step back and ask if there’s a
simpler way to solve it. It may also be helpful to write everything out so you can see insights and bugs
faster and make fewer mistakes.
Design Interview
What can you expect?
This interview may be systems or product design focused depending upon the specific position for which you are
interviewing. While much of the prep information will be the same across all interview types, please be mindful
that there are key differences between the interviews that we will discuss below. Please connect with your
recruiter if you are unsure which interview type to prepare for during your prep.
The design interview is 45-minutes and covers the design of complex systems or products and the tradeoffs
within your design. This will be a challenging and deeply technical discussion and the scope of the question can
vary widely.
• Systems Design: The Systems Design interview is more focused on distributed systems, scalability,
performance and efficiency.
• Product Architectural Design: The Product Architectural Design interview is more focused on API design,
usability and utility.
What do we look for?
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The purpose of this interview is to assess your ability to solve a non-trivial engineering design problem. The
interviewer is trying to determine if you can architect a solution to a higher-level problem that requires
connecting multiple concepts. The question will be something very high-level and it will be up to you to drive the
conversation.
Your interviewer will be thinking about how your skills and experience might help Meta as well as how you tackle
problems you’re not as familiar with. In your design interview, your interviewer will assess your performance on 4
focus areas:
• Focus Area 1: Problem navigation: Are you demonstrating your ability to organize the problem spaces,
the constraints, and the potential solutions? You should be asking questions to reduce ambiguity, identify
the most critical problems, understand what is needed for quantitative analysis, and define a requirement
set to design to.
• Focus Area 2: Solution design: We are evaluating your ability to design a working solution that addresses
either the complete problem/design or pieces of the problem/design. Are you able to consider the big
picture in your design?
• Focus Area 3: Technical excellence: Can you dive into the technical details when needed? Can you identify
and articulate the dependencies and trade-offs? How are you mitigating potential risks and failure points?
• Focus Area 4: Technical communication: Can you articulate your vision and technical ideas clearly? We are
assessing your ability to communicate your reasoning as well as understand and address feedback from
the interviewer.
How to prep
Interviewers can only assess your skills and abilities based on what you show them during your interview, so it’s
important to plan and prepare to best showcase your strengths. As you begin preparing, please reference your
Career Profile for additional role-specific prep materials, if available.
This may be a challenging interview to prepare for given it is so interactive and there’s no “right answer” for a
design problem. Use the prep tips here and the resources listed in the appendix.
In addition to reviewing the above information, these tips may be helpful as you prepare:
• Tip 1: Improve upon a design. Think about and review the complex systems you’ve already designed.
What would you change about your approach if you did it all over again? What worked well?
• Tip 2: Design from the ground up. Think about how you’d design a system that Meta (or another large
tech company) already has. It’s a good exercise to think through the complicated, high-scale systems
that you already use every day. How would you design it from scratch? What are the bottlenecks to your
solution? How would you address them?
• Tip 3: Think through tradeoffs. Avoid focusing on only optimal solutions. We're much more interested in
seeing how you think through basic tradeoffs.
• Tip 4: Do some research. Read engineering blogs about approaches that have worked for big companies
along the way. Read about the false-starts too!
• Tip 5: Be holistic and detailed. Practice moving effortlessly from high-level information to the precise
details. Outline the high-level requirements by describing what components you may need, how they fit
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together, and how to get to that solution.
• Tip 6: Practice: Find a few system design questions online and try to answer them on paper in roughly 30
minutes per question.
• Tip 7: Start with the requirements. Your interviewer might ask: “How would you architect the front-end
for a messaging system?” Obviously, this question is extremely vague so you could start with some
requirements:
• How many users are we talking about?
• What should the experience be while you’re waiting for confirmation?
• How will you show error states?
• What are the latency requirements for sender–receiver message delivery?
• What kind of features are we going to need to support?
• What operations does this data store need to support?
• How do you push new messages to clients? Do you push at all, or rely on a pull-based model?
During the Interview
System Design
In the system design interview, we will expect you to demonstrate an understanding of the low-level restraints
and how they affect the high-level goals. Be sure to talk through your solutions while keeping in mind different
tradeoffs. Some areas to discuss in system design:
• Testability: formally, or otherwise, gaining confidence that the components are correct.
• Usability: customer’s experience with the system or product and how to evolve it quickly.
• Extensibility: changing the software system over time.
• Security: can the system or product survive DDOS, spoofing, tampering, repudiation, etc.
• Portability: execution in different environments.
• Availability: how the system survives failures.
• Scalability: how the system can grow over time.
• Operational characteristics: diagnosing or debugging problems when they occur.
Example system design questions:
• Design a URL shortener
• Build a Facebook chat
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• Architect a worldwide video distribution system
Product Architecture or Design
During the product architecture or design interview, the interviewer will focus on building a product or API at
scale that supports an end user product or service. You should be familiar with the areas below, but we're not
looking for you to be an expert in all of them. You should know enough to weight design considerations (and
understand when to consult an expert):
• Storage data models
• Scalability
• Design patterns
• Data ownership
• Protocols
• Data formats
• Client-server design
• Designing for long-term vs. complexity
• Accommodating possible product changes
Example product architecture or design questions:
• Design a service or product API
• Design a chat service or a feed API
• Design an email server
Behavioral Interview
What can you expect?
The behavioral interview will consist of a 45-minute session. Your interviewer will want to learn about your
background, what you’re passionate about in tech, and what kind of impact you want to make.
What do we look for?
Your interviewer will be thinking about how your skills and experience might help Meta as well as how you tackle
problems you’re not as familiar with. In your behavioral interview, your interviewer will assess your performance
on 5 focus areas:
• Focus Area 1: Resolving conflict: What kind of disagreements have you had with colleagues and/or
managers? How have you resolved them? Can you empathize with people whose points of view differ
radically from yours?
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• Focus Area 2: Growing continuously: Your interviewer will be assessing your aptitude for seeking out
opportunities for growth and learning. Do you take constructive criticism as an opportunity to improve?
How have you approached improving your skills?
• Focus Area 3: Embracing ambiguity: How do you operate in an ambiguous and quickly changing
environment? Are you comfortable making decisions and maintaining high levels of productivity when
you are missing information or lack clarity? How did you react when you had to quickly pivot away from a
project due to a shift in priority?
• Focus Area 4: Driving results: We will be evaluating your experience pushing yourself and others to deliver
against goals and objectives. How do you demonstrate your impact? Are you self-directed in reaching
goals despite challenges and roadblocks?
• Focus Area 5: Communicating effectively: How well do you communicate with teams? What about
cross-functional partners? How do you tailor your communications based on the work and/or the
audience?
We may ask you to:
• Discuss available details of past and current projects
• Provide specific examples about what you did and the resulting impact.
• Share what you learned from a past situation.
• Talk about what you like about your current role and/or being a developer.
How to prep
Interviewers can only assess your skills and abilities based on what you show them during your interview, so it’s
important to plan and prepare to best showcase your strengths. As you begin preparing, please reference your
Career Profile for additional role-specific prep materials, if available.
Just like with the coding and design interviews, it’s important to prepare ahead of time for interviews designed to
get to know you better.
In addition to reviewing the above information, these tips may be helpful as you prepare:
• Tip 1: Know yourself. Take the time to review your own résumé as your interviewer will almost certainly
ask about key events in your work history. Be prepared to discuss projects in depth. It's helpful to outline
2-3 major projects ahead of time.
• Tip 2: Be honest. Not every project is a runaway success, and we may not always interact perfectly with
our peers. Being transparent in these situations won’t be counted against you in the interview. In fact,
sharing & discussing how you learned, improved, and grew from your past experiences is valued. Share
what you learned from a past situation.
• Tip 3: Use the S.T.A.R. method to mentally organize your thoughts. This will provoke a well-thought-out
and chronological action of events. Easy to describe, easy to follow. You can practice this method using
the Journaling Exercises in the Preparation Hub within your Career Profile
• S—One or two sentences about the SITUATION: What happened?
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• T—Describe the TASK: What was your specific goal?
• A—ACTIONS you took to overcome the obstacles and complete your objective.
• R—The tangible / quantifiable RESULTS of the situation: How did it help 9 the team / company?
• Tip 4: Have concrete examples or anecdotes. Support each question with practical experiences and
examples. Avoid theoretical answers - if you go into a theoretical tangent, your interviewer will redirect
you to provide a concrete example.
Final tips for your interview
• Be yourself. This means being open and honest about your successes and ways you’ve improved
throughout your career. Also, be sure to call out how you have specifically added value to your team or
projects you’ve contributed to. We value teamwork and what each individual member brings to the table.
• Carefully review and familiarize yourself with the job description and perform research on Meta and the
role. Be prepared to answer why you are interested in this specific role and in working at Meta.
• Please take the time to review our mission statement and core values. These values influence how we
work together to fulfill our mission to build the future of human connection and the technology that
makes it possible. We also encourage you to take time using our technologies such as Facebook,
Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
• One important piece of advice for your interviews: it’s ok if you don’t know! No one who works at Meta is
an expert in all things, and we don’t look for perfection in the people we interview. If you aren’t sure of
something during your interview, you’re encouraged to ask clarifying questions and be upfront if there are
topics that you have less experience with.
• Prepare thoughtful questions for the interviewer(s). Your interviewer may challenge your ideas, and you
should be ready to speak not only to what you recommend or have experienced but the why as well. It is
important to think outside the box and to approach problems from creative and different perspectives.
Post interview – What to expect
You can expect your recruiter to provide a specific timeline or updates along the way. Your recruiter will inform
you of next steps after your interview as soon as they are available. Feel free to follow up with them if you have
not heard within a week of your interviews.
Appendix / Resources
Below is a curated list of resources to get started and help you prepare.
Role-specific prep
• Engineering at Meta - FB page
• Meta Code videos
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• Meta Opensource website
• Engineering Leadership at Meta blog
Coding Resources
• Software Engineering Interview Q+A Video
• Cracking the Meta Coding Interview Videos (The Approach and Problem Walkthrough) (password:
FB_IPS)
• Topcoder
• GeeksQuiz
Design Interview Resources
• System and Product Design Interview overview
• Grokking the Design Interview overview
• GitHub Design Primer
• Familiarize yourself with Excalidraw
Meta resources
• About Meta website
• Meta Newsroom website
• Meta Careers website
• Culture at Meta website
• Meta employee benefits website
• Interviewing at Meta: The keys to success blog
Update personal information, track interview progress, and send thank you notes.
At any time during the interview process, you can track your progress, send thank-you notes and update your
personal information all via the Career Profile. If you do not receive a link from recruiting, you may create one.
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Thank you for taking the time to review this guide!
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