did my Meta onsite in April 2026, remote format. sharing the actual timeline and what each block was like.
the loop structure (for SWE L5): 2 coding rounds (45 min each) 1 system design (45 min) 1 behavioral / leadership principles (45 min) 1 JEDI round (sometimes bundled with behavioral, mine was separate)
all on the same day or split across two days. mine was same day: 9am-4pm with a 30 min lunch break and short gaps. by round 4 you're tired. that's not an accident.
coding rounds: both of mine were graph/tree related. one was a standard BFS/DFS variant where the question seemed simple and the difficulty was in the edge cases. the second had a DP component. they want working code, not pseudocode. Meta specifically checks correctness more rigorously than some other companies. they will run through edge cases out loud with you.
one thing that tripped me up: I tried to optimize prematurely on round 1. the interviewer stopped me and said "does it work first?" lesson: get the brute force down and explained, then optimize. they'd rather see a clean O(n^2) that you can articulate than an O(n log n) you can't fully explain.
system design: see my notes in the other post on this. 45 min, one prompt, you drive the whole thing.
behavioral: 3-4 stories, STAR format. they will probe on specifics. "what would you have done differently" comes up every time.
after the loop: debrief happens internally, usually takes 1-3 weeks. my recruiter said 2 weeks and it was 16 days. don't read into silence. if you passed recruiter and coding assessment, they're not ghosting you this stage.
one thing nobody told me: there's a "bar raiser" equivalent at Meta called a "hiring committee." your interviewers individually submit feedback and a vote, then a committee can adjust the level recommendation or the hire/no-hire. your recruiter doesn't usually mention this unless you ask. the committee is the actual decision point, not any individual interviewer.