I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Meta (Irvine, CA) in May 2020
Interview
A hipsterish recruiter emailed me on behalf of a manager to see if I'm interested in research position. He had me fill out a profile on their platform. Once that was done, he set up a video interview on BlueJeans with a scientist on that team. I did not enjoy the interview; the AV quality was so choppy that it was such a bad experience (why don't they just Zoom like everyone else). I declined to proceed further immediately after the call.
I applied online. I interviewed at Meta in Jan 2016
Interview
I had sent my CV to the HR. for a research scientist position. Within 2 weeks I had a first phone interview in 2016. I did not get a call for in person full interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Interviewer asked me a question related to strings that required recursive dynamic programming algorithm.
The recruiter was professional and pleasant to deal with, but not so much so for the subset of the team that did the interview. Long story short, if the hiring manager does not even bother to conduct that first interview him/herself, just cancel it and save yourself some time. That time is probably better spent going for a haircut or a coffee.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Technical questions that were more reminiscent of entry-level positions.