I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Meta in Mar 2026
Interview
I recently interviewed for a Software Engineer role. While the technical interviewers were professional, the recruiting process was one of the most inefficient and deceptive experiences I’ve encountered in the industry.
1. Misleading and "Ghost-Rejection" Emailing Style:
Two days after the full loop interview, the recruiter sent an email titled "Thank You for Your Time Today!" filled with overly enthusiastic language ("huge thank you," "enthusiasm," "here for you every step of the way"). For any experienced candidate, this reads like a "soft" rejection template, yet it was served to tell me to wait for their result. It felt like a deliberate attempt to manipulate the candidate’s expectations rather than providing a clear, professional status update.
2. Pointless Sync Call for a 30-Second Rejection:
Despite having the result ready by Friday, the recruiter insisted on scheduling a formal "sync call" on the following Tuesday morning. I had to adjust my own work schedule and book a private room at my current office, only for the recruiter to spend 30 seconds reading a standard rejection script.
When I provided feedback that this information could—and should—have been handled via email to respect everyone's time, the recruiter doubled down, claiming they wanted to "show gratitude." There is no gratitude in wasting a candidate’s productive working hours for an update that fits in two sentences.
3. The Outcome:
After all this "high-touch" (read: high-friction) communication, it ended in a standard 12-month cool-off period.
Advice to Management
Efficiency is a core value at Meta, but it is clearly missing in the recruiting department. Stop forcing "sync calls" for rejections. It is not "personal"; it is disruptive. If you have a decision on Friday, send the email on Friday. Respect the candidates’ working hours and their professional time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard leetcode style question, with AI available in one interview
Got a referral through a friend who worked at Meta, which sped up the entire process. After a casual initial chat, I went through a technical interview where I faced a DSA question about validating palindromes. The interviewer was friendly but rigorous. During prep, I had spent time with the coding challenges on PracHub, and it was funny to see a similar palindrome question pop up. Overall, I received an offer, but ultimately decided to decline it after careful consideration.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a string s, return true if it can be a palindrome after deleting at most one character (Valid Palindrome II).
Recruiter call was pretty standard, first round was 2 Meta tagged LC mediums in 45 minutes. On-site was 2 coding sessions of 2 LC mediums, a system design interview and a behavioral interview with an engineering manager.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you answer if someone asks how long a deliverable or project will take?
The entire process usually takes 3–8 weeks, depending on scheduling and the specific role. Coding interviews heavily emphasize common DSA topics such as arrays, strings, trees, graphs, BFS/DFS, heaps, hash maps, and dynamic programming. System design becomes increasingly important for E4+ positions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given an array of integers and a target value, return the indices of two numbers that add up to the target
