CrackingWalnuts
Checked 3 August 2026. Meta states the overall timeline and the broad stages. Round names, counts and durations are commonly reported by candidates, not published. Source: metacareers.com/hiring-process.
| Round | Duration | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Screen (Ninja) | 45 min | Two mediums in 35 min plus follow-up. |
| Ninja 1 (Coding) | 45 min | Two mediums in 35 min. Same bar as E5. |
| Ninja 2 (Coding) | 45 min | Different problem space. Often graphs or DP. |
| Pirate (System Design) | 45 min | One open-ended design. Basic depth expected. |
| Pirate Product (for product eng) or second Pirate | 45 min | Product Architecture at lighter depth than E5. |
| Jedi (Behavioral) | 45 min | Five signals. Stories at feature ownership scope. |
E4 is the mid level. Engineers with 2 to 4 years of experience target this directly. Many strong E5 candidates also land here after the committee down-levels.
Targeted guidance per round in this loop. Each section links to the matching track on the site. There is no shortcut list, the bar moves loop to loop, so build the pattern recognition and the stories from real practice.
Work the pattern templates until the recognition is instant. Trace one mock problem per pattern. Practice stating time and space complexity out loud before you write code.
Meta E4 (Software Engineer, Mid) has one design round: Pirate (System Design) (45 min): One open-ended design. Basic depth expected.. Bar is a clean end-to-end design at modest scale, with a sensible API and one trade-off discussion. Pick problems from the track at the scale this loop tests and rehearse the structure: requirements, numbers, high-level design, data model, API, deep dive on one part, trade-offs.
Junior bar. You now have real production work. Stories should center on features you owned, bugs you debugged, and how you collaborated with senior engineers. Skip multi-team and multi-quarter scope; that comes at Senior. Meta's framework (Move Fast, Build Awesome Things, Focus on Long-Term Impact, Live in the Future) is what stories should map to.