Given that Facebook’s parent name is now Meta, FAANG might technically be MAANG now. Anyway, regardless of the terminology, how FAANG hires engineers has always been a subject of interest.
Job seekers want to know how to land a job at these tech giants, and recruiters are looking for insights into leading hiring practices. So if you’re one of the many professionals interested in how FAANG hires engineers, let’s take a look at their recruiting strategies.
Tech recruiting – FAANG's framework for hiring engineers
While FAANG companies each have hiring practices that make them stand out, they all rely on tech screening to hire the best engineers.
Tech recruiting is a hiring process where candidates are objectively evaluated on merit through screening questions that assess their practical and programming skills. Because FAANG companies recruit at scale, they leverage tech recruitment platforms like WeCP to conduct bulk assessments.
These recruitment solutions let hiring managers create role-specific tests and evaluate thousands of candidates simultaneously. The technical assessment software also include plagiarism prevention technology and automatic grading systems, to facilitate fair evaluations.
How Facebook hires engineers
Facebook’s hiring process for software engineers follows the general FAANG framework; it’s swayed towards technical interviewing to assess practical skills and concepts.
But, unlike most tech giants that prioritize live coding challenges, Facebook includes ‘take home’ project assessments in their screening process. Here’s what a typical Facebook screening process for engineers looks like:
- An initial resume screening.
- A technical phone screen.
- A whiteboard coding test or take-home coding challenge. These tests usually take no more than 30 minutes, and candidates should explain their solutions clearly.
- A final round of thorough on-site interviews, which help assess the applicant’s cultural fit.
Now, after the screening stage concludes, Facebook uses an internal system to collect hiring feedback. Each team member submits a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response for recruiting an applicant, and employees can only see each other’s feedback after submission.
The final hiring decision is made by a team of hiring managers. As with all major tech organizations, the decision isn’t left to just one recruiter.
How Apple hires engineers
Unlike most Big Tech corporations, Apple keeps its interviewing practices under wraps. That’s not to say their interview process isn’t known, but Apple recruiters are quiet about their methods.
Apple’s recruiters reportedly prioritize technical questions, even during the lunch interview. In addition to being secretive, Apple’s interviewing process is longer and more rigorous than other FAANG corporations’.
A typical Apple screening includes:
- Initial resume/CV screening.
- One or two technical phone interviews. A recruiter conducts the first phone screening. They brief the applicant on the screening process and discuss the candidate’s work experience. Then, an engineer team member might conduct a second phone screening.
- FaceTime interviews. This round may include up to 5 sessions of 1:1 interviews, 30 minutes each. These sessions are designed to assess candidates’ technical and behavioral skills, so they may include coding questions.
- On-site interviews. Apple traditionally concludes its hiring with a round of on-site interviews, which usually last 6 hours.
Bonus Step: Some engineers are assessed by Apple’s Assessment Center, before the on-site interviews. Candidates might be asked to work on group projects relevant to the role they’re applying for.
How Amazon hires engineers
Amazon’s interview process is similar to that of most FAANG companies, but the questions’ type and difficulty reportedly vary. So, some applicants may find the process more challenging than others.
Amazon’s interviews are heavily influenced by their Leadership Principles, especially Customer Obsession. Additionally, their coding challenges for software engineers are rigorous.
Moreover, Amazon may ask applicants to solve pre-interview coding tests before the technical phone screening. These challenges include:
- Debugging questions, with around 20 minutes to solve seven questions. Applicants are given problems with solutions that don’t execute properly and must debug the code within the time frame.
- Coding questions, with around 70 minutes to solve 2 comprehensive questions. These coding problems relate to data structures and algorithms, and candidates can solve the questions in 1 of 8 programming languages.
- A job simulation and logical reasoning questions. The simulation lasts around 2 hours, and applicants will need to respond to scenarios that Amazon employees face in real life. The logical reasoning section includes 24 questions to be solved in 35 minutes.
Beyond the pre-screening, Amazon’s interview process also includes coding challenges later in the funnel. The tech corp clearly values coding skills immensely.
In general, the megacorp’s interview process is as follows:
- Initial pre-screening, which may include online coding challenges and resume screening.
- Technical phone screening, including 1-2 interviews that are usually taken over Amazon Chime. The first is conducted by a recruiter, and the second by an engineering team member.
In the phone screening, applicants are vetted for their technical and behavioral skills. They may have to solve data structures and algorithm coding problems using an online collaborative text editor. - On-site interviews, which may include 4-6 people. Applicants will need to solve coding challenges and design problems, and they’ll be tested on some of Amazon’s Leadership Principles.
How Google hires engineers
In response to a question about brainteasers, Google’s hiring page says:
“Nope. Our data showed that brainteaser questions didn’t predict how well someone would do on the job so we no longer ask them. Instead, we do work sample tests and ask structured interview questions.”
This answer summarizes the gist of Google’s hiring process nicely; they prioritize practical skills and evaluate them through skill-based assessments.
Google’s general hiring process is as follows:
- Initial resume screening. Applicants submit their applications through the online portal, and Google’s talent acquisition team screens the resumes. Then, candidates that may be a good fit are invited for interviews.
- Screening stage. Google’s interview process varies depending on the position, but most tech roles include coding quizzes and tech phone screening. Recruiters may also assign project work to better understand an applicant’s skill set.
- In-depth interviews. Google’s interview process is rigorous, and they may take 3-4 interviews in a day. The interviews aim to learn more about an applicant’s suitability, skills, and cultural fit.
Google interviews may be structured (i.e., following a pre-defined sequence with pre-designed questions) or semi-structured (with open-ended questions). Additionally, the tech giant doesn’t rely on one recruiter’s opinion for a hiring decision. Instead, multiple team members are invited to weigh in.
After the screening process concludes, Google reaches out to successful applicants and proceeds to onboard new employees.
How Netflix hires engineers
Netflix has a truly unique hiring strategy that’s a regular subject of discussion. In general, the tech giant does not hire fresh graduates. Instead, their hiring drives typically target engineers with at least three years of experience.
The philosophy behind Netflix’s hiring strategy is summed up by this quote from Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix:
“Over the years, I’ve come to see that the best programmer doesn’t add 10 times the value. He or she adds more like a 100 times.“
That’s a bold claim, but given the tech giant’s massive success, it appears to hold its ground. So, what does Netflix’s hiring process look like? Let’s take a look.
- The process starts with a recruiter phone screening, lasting around 30-45 minutes. Applicants are asked about their interest in working at Netflix, their skill set and experience, and questions about Netflix’s culture.
- Next up is a technical phone screen, conducted by a hiring or engineer team manager. Candidates are questioned about their knowledge of programming languages and technical concepts, and they may need to answer resume-related or behavioral questions.
- Sometimes, engineers are given a take-home project test instead of the technical phone screen. They’ll have 6-8 hours to complete the task.
- On-site interviews, which include two stages. In the first stage, applicants give four technical interviews of around 45 minutes each with different team members. Applicants may have to solve whiteboard challenges or coding problems (usually related to data structures and algorithms).
- The second half includes three sessions with human resources, the hiring manager, and the engineering team manager, respectively. Each session lasts for 45 minutes and includes behavioral and culture questions, although the engineering team lead may ask technical questions.
Key takeaways from how FAANG hires engineers
As one might expect, FAANG corporations don’t spare any resources to perfect their hiring process. They perfect their talent acquisition with rigorous, skill-based hiring processes.
From our deep-dive into how FAANG does the hiring, some takeaways from its processes on how a recruiter hires engineers in general are:
- Be thorough. Every FAANG corporation leverages a multi-stage recruitment process and vets applicants thoroughly.
- Prioritize merit-based hiring. FAANG organizations prioritize coding challenges and technical screening to evaluate software engineers. Their skills-focused hiring strategies limit hiring biases and optimize their tech talent acquisition.
- Don’t downplay cultural fit. Big Tech organizations leverage interview panels and behavioral questions to assess applicants’ cultural fit. How well an applicant adjusts to your organization impacts turnover and their performance is of foremost importance.
- Leverage HR technology. Whether it’s to conduct coding assessments, video interviews, or whiteboard challenges, FAANG corps use technology to streamline their hiring operations.
Implement FAANG's hiring framework with WeCP
As industry leaders, FAANG sets the standards in tech recruiting. Tech organizations and startups can learn a lot from their skills-focused hiring practices.
But, to implement similar technical hiring processes, you’ll need the right technology, which is where WeCP (We Create Problems) helps out.
WeCP is a robust tech recruitment platform that recruiters use to optimize tech screening processes. With WeCP, you can conduct video interviews and generate custom assessments for more than 2000 tech roles.
WeCP’s cheat-proof platform uses bias-free automated scoring to guarantee fair assessment, where candidates are evaluated across 12+ performance metrics. We’ve helped fast-growing Fortune 100 companies trim their time to hire by as much as 90%.
So if you’re looking to optimize your tech talent acquisition, start tech screening with WeCP.
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