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. Lighter expectations. |
| Ninja (Coding) | 45 min | One round only at E7. Approach matters more than completion. |
| Pirate (System Design Deep) | 90 min | Very deep design with strategy implications and multi-year evolution. |
| Cross-Org Strategy | 60 min | Multi-year technical strategy and how to align teams. |
| Jedi (Behavioral - Org Impact) | 60 min | Company-level impact, hiring senior engineers, mentorship at scale. |
| VP / Director Round | 45 min | Vision, fit with the org, leadership style. |
E7 is the senior staff level.
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 E7 (Senior Staff Software Engineer) has one design round: Pirate (System Design Deep) (90 min): Very deep design with strategy implications and multi-year evolution.. Bar is multi-year architectural bets and cross-org technical strategy. You should be naming specific decisions you would defend in a roomful of senior engineers. 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.
Principal bar. Multi-year bets, executive-level communication, cross-org influence, and growing Staff engineers. The behavioral rounds often outweigh technical-depth rounds in the final hiring decision at this level. Meta's framework (Move Fast, Build Awesome Things, Focus on Long-Term Impact, Live in the Future) is what stories should map to.