I applied online. I interviewed at Meta in Jan 2026
No offer
Neutral experience
Average interview
Application
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Meta (San Francisco, CA) in Feb 2025
Interview
A recruiter contacted for a Machine Learning role related to software development. The interview process consisted of 1 screening round and then 4-5 final interviews.
Only did the screening round which had 2 medium difficulty string-based leetcode questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Find all missing numbers in an array. Append each to a string.
2. Find overall max length of repeating substrings in a string. Print first character of each repeating substring with max value.
I applied for a Machine Learning Research Scientist (PhD) position. I did pretty well in the initial CodeSignal screening and passed all four test cases, but I did not move forward to the next stage. It seemed the role might have been leaning toward an internal candidate or my resume was not enough
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first screening was data structures and algorithms (DSA), with questions at a LeetCode easy to medium level (moslty medium). I did not feel constrained by time and was able to complete the questions without time pressure
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Meta (Menlo Park, CA) in Feb 2025
Interview
A recruiter reached out to me and scheduled a technical screening interview, which consisted of two LeetCode easy/medium problems. After passing the screening, I moved on to the virtual onsite interviews, which included:
2 coding interviews (LeetCode medium/hard),
1 ML system design interview (focused on a binary classification problem), and
1 behavioral interview
The interviewers were friendly and supportive throughout the process.
Machine Learning Research Scientist applicants have rated the interview process at Meta with 3.2 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 56.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Machine Learning Research Scientist roles take an average of 41 days to get hired, when considering 6 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Meta overall takes an average of 31 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Meta as a Machine Learning Research Scientist according to 6 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 45%
Skills test: 27%
One on one interview: 18%
Background check: 9%
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