Meta Production Engineer Interview Guide II

Meta Production Engineer Interview Prep Guide

Introduction

Let’s start with a question you could get in a Systems round (more details on all the rounds below) during the Meta Production Engineer Interview loop:

"Every day, at roughly the same time, a process keeps crashing on one of the Linux servers in production. You look at the logs, and the last line says Exception: Failed to allocate 1GB for .... It’s a Linux server, and you quickly run the free -h command and find that the server actually has 1GB of memory free. Furthermore, swapping has been disabled on the machine since it runs performance-critical applications, and swapping would cause an unacceptable performance hit. So the processes on this machine have been intentionally configured not to take advantage of disk memory via swapping. How come the process can’t allocate 1GB even though 1GB is available?

A candidate with a deep understanding of fragmentation may recognize that, even though 1GB appears "free," the memory is scattered in smaller chunks. As a result, the Linux kernel can’t find a contiguous 1GB block of memory for the allocation—typically due to physical fragmentation (especially relevant for huge pages), though in rare cases virtual address space fragmentation can also play a role. This question tests not only your grasp of system internals and memory management but also your ability to apply that knowledge in a real-world troubleshooting scenario, as opposed to mere regurgitation of facts.

You can still get questions that simply require recalling facts. For example:

What is the difference between TCP and UDP protocols?

This is just a taste of the types of questions you can expect. Now let’s dive into the details of the Meta Production Engineer interview loop.

If you're looking for structured guidance throughout the entire interview loop, we’ve created a comprehensive course based on real candidate experiences. It’s designed to help you get interview-ready. You can also try our mock interviews (AI and human-led) to assess and sharpen your readiness.

Table of Contents

• Meta and the Production Engineering Role
• Overview of Production Engineering at Meta
• Interview Process Overview
• Screening Rounds
• On-sites/Final Rounds
• Team Matching
• More Interview Questions by Round
• PE Basics
• PE Coding
• SWE Coding
• Systems (OS Concepts)
• Behavioral
• Preparation Tips
• General Advice

1. Meta and the Production Engineering Role

1.1 Overview of Production Engineering at Meta

Production Engineers (PEs) at Meta play a hybrid role, operating as both software and systems engineers. They often partner with multiple engineering groups to address end-to-end production challenges, ensuring minimal downtime.

2. Interview Process Overview

PE (Production Engineer)

There are five major 45-minute rounds across the interview process, excluding any recruiter chats or team matching calls. These rounds are: PE Basics, PE Coding, SWE Coding, Systems (OS Concepts), Design Architecture, and Behavioral.

PE interns typically complete just the PE Basics and PE Coding rounds, but this is subject to change. New grads and more senior hires can expect to have a screening phase with two rounds and an on-site with 3–4 rounds.

Although interns and new grads don't have a dedicated system design round, several candidates have reported being asked open-ended questions like: How would you design a chat application like WhatsApp? or Pick any system and design it.It appears they want to see that you have some idea of infrastructure components and how they fit together. Some candidates have even been asked about load balancing algorithms, caching, time-to-live, etc. So having a basic understanding of system design will be useful even if you're only going for the intern or new grad role. They're obviously not looking for you to be an expert at system design like a seasoned engineer.

A very common question asked in the PE basics rounds is to describe step-by-step what happens in the interval between a user entering a URL like www.facebook.com into a browser and the page rendering. You'd be expected to talk about things like (but not limited to):

- DNS resolution

- The SSL/TLS connection & handshake

- The TCP connection and handshake

The deeper you can go, the more impressive your response will be.

2.1 Screening Rounds

The typical screening rounds include:

• PE Basics: This round covers fundamental concepts in three main areas:

1. Operating System Fundamentals: Memory management, user and process management, and key Linux/Unix commands. You can expect questions such as What is the difference between a process and a thread? or How to interpret the output of free -h on a Linux server?
2. Troubleshooting & Debugging: This involves embracing ambiguity and explaining the steps you’d take to investigate issues. You’d typically walk through how to identify the root cause, resolve the issue, and prevent it from recurring. For example, you might be asked how you would diagnose a slow or crashing webserver.
3. Distributed Systems & Network Concepts: Topics include understanding HTTP, HTTPS, TLS basics, networking protocols, and fundamental Linux commands (grep, awk, sed, etc.). You can expect questions that involve recalling facts, as well as those that test your understanding.

• PE Coding: This round focuses more on practical coding than algorithm-style problems. You’re typically able to choose your preferred programming language. Tasks often mirror real-world production engineering activities, such as automating a routine task or processing logs for analytics. One tip to help you stand out: for problems involving large amounts of data, consider techniques for efficient processing (e.g., using sort --parallel to speed up sorting in large files).

2.2 On-sites/Final Rounds

In the on-site (or final) rounds, you’ll typically encounter four main areas: Systems (OS Concepts), Design Architecture (System Design), SWE Coding, and Behavioral.

• Systems (OS Concepts): This is not a system design round but a deeper dive into OS internals, networking stacks, kernel interactions, and diagnosing large-scale production issues.
• Design Architecture: This round explores high-level system design for infrastructure-type problems, such as designing a chat application or other highly available, scalable systems.
• Behavioral: You’ll be asked competency-based questions to assess your alignment with Meta’s culture and values. You should be able to explain why you want to work at Meta, how you handle conflicts with colleagues, and demonstrate past experiences that align with Meta values like "Move Fast & Break Things" or "Focus on Long-term Impact."

Note: The grouping into screening and on-sites is subject to change and may vary by level. For example, interns in 2024/2025 have PE Basics as their final round.

2.3 Team Matching

Once the interview rounds are successfully completed, team matching begins. Typically, you’ll have hiring manager calls to gauge mutual fit. You’ll also have the opportunity to express preferences for specific Meta teams and locations. An offer is often extended soon after a good match is found.

3. More Interview Questions by Round

3.1 PE Basics

• What is the difference between a process and a thread?
• How would you troubleshoot a system where an application fails to start on the server?
• In as much detail as possible, explain what an operating system is and what it does.

3.2 PE Coding

• Typical questions revolve around reading data from log files, using awk to extract certain columns, and processing (sorting, filtering, etc.) to get a certain output (which you may have to write to a file).
• Sometimes you’ll be given helper functions that you have to leverage in your solution, so pay attention to detail and don’t implement something already provided.

3.3 SWE Coding

These are typically standard data structures and algorithms questions where you have to:

• Determine if a given string is a palindrome.
• Iterate through a 2D array and count the number of cells that satisfy a condition.
• Use binary search to find an object satisfying a certain condition in a sorted array.
• Other concepts like depth-first search, breadth-first search, using stacks, queues, etc., are in scope.

Dynamic programming is highly unlikely to be asked—even plain SWEs don’t typically face dynamic programming questions.

3.4 Systems (OS Concepts)

• What is a zombie process?
• How does the kill command work at the kernel level?
• Explain how virtual memory works in Linux using the example of a process trying to read data in a specific block of memory.
• An application is running slowly, and investigation reveals it is heavily swapping and this is impacting performance. How would you resolve this issue?

3.5 Behavioral

• Describe a challenging problem you faced at work and how you resolved it.
• Tell me about a time when you had to collaborate with someone whose working style was different from yours.
• Why do you want to work at Meta?
• Bad answer: "Meta is at the cutting edge of innovation, and I just want to work on innovative things." This could show a lack of awareness of day-to-day production realities, where maintaining legacy systems may be a significant part of the job.
• Good answer: Mention the massive scale at which Meta operates, the challenges it offers, and the impact you can have given how communication technology has transformed the world. Show cultural alignment, such as valuing moving fast and working in a collaborative environment.

4. Preparation Tips

4.1 General Advice

• Practice under realistic conditions: Mock interviews help hone your interviewing skills, such as pausing to understand questions, time management, and handling pressure without freezing up.
• Reschedule if needed: If you’re clearly not ready, don’t hesitate to reschedule. Gauge your readiness objectively (e.g., consistently getting a “hire” in realistic mock interviews is a good signal).
• Strong foundational knowledge: Ensure your fundamentals in core concepts (Systems Internals, Networking, Linux commands, Troubleshooting production issues, System Design) are solid.
• Prepare responses to anticipated behavioral questions using the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Always ask your recruiter for a detailed interview guide (typically a PDF). Some recruiters provide it without asking, but some seem to forget.

Ready to Ace the Meta PE Interview?

Our Meta PE Interview Course walks you through each round—from PE Basics and Coding to Systems, SWE, and Behavioral—with expert guidance and up-to-date questions based on actual interview experiences.

Pair that with realistic mock interviews (both AI and human-led) to simulate the pressure, identify weak spots, and boost your confidence.

→ Start Your Prep Now