Process: I applied online, recruiter contacted me and described the position briefly. There were a couple of phone screens and I then went onsite. On the day, I made a presentation and had 5 other rounds.
About the role: This is a new role for them and they are still figuring out what they are looking for. The person will temporarily report to a lead for a different vertical till they can figure out a more permanent reporting/management structure. The ambiguity in background and skills required was reflected during multiple conversations and made the interview unnecessarily difficult.
Interview experience: I spoke with 8 people during multiple interviews, all of whom were professional but for the recruiter. The conversations with the recruiter were by far the worst professional conversations I have ever had. Email communication was devoid of any punctuation, incomplete and unprofessional. In one case, there were 4 sentences without any punctuation whatsoever.
Phone conversations were worse. As an example, when asked what the second phone screen might focus on, the response was "well we do these phone screens so that we do not waste our interviewers time by getting you here.". Well, I know the purpose of screening, not what I was asking. Other conversations were similar. I considered pulling out of the interview multiple times to avoid being insulted.
She misinformed me about the importance of SQL for the role and interview. Told me that SQL would be most important thing and was worried if I could clear. The job requirements stated SQL as nice-to-have. The SQL interviewer started the interview by saying that I would rarely require to do anything difficult in SQL. He asked very elementary questions during the interview, I wasted days preparing for way more advanced topics.
I was given a presentation assignment with more than a month to prepare. The question was described in 3 sentences with internal terminology and expected me to tell FB what to do next for a particular area. She was not willing to have me speak to anyone to get clarifications on the terms used, scope of the problem, goal of the session etc.
In the absence of any clarification, I spent multiple weeks working on it. Needless to say it was not what the interviewers had in mind. Simple things that could have been clarified by a 10 min call or a simple email.
I went into the interview dreading interacting with the recruiter and came out with a very sour taste, though I am kinda certain my experience would not represent how FB treats their other candidates (having known others who have gone through the process).
Earlier feedback on Glassdoor for the vertical that I interacted with (temporary reporting structure) is mostly neutral or negative as well. I feel positively about Facebook, hope they are reading this and will use this feedback to make necessary corrections.
