I interviewed a Meta Senior SWE in 2023. Guy couldn't write the most basic Python loop. Attempts were made. I didn't expect a list comprehension. This was just a warmup exercise fizz-buzz level so everyone can feel confident and talk. Everyone just smashes it. I could have done it as a teenager. Had to call it off after 15 min of trying. It was too much. But he took it on the chin. "Yep, thanks, sorry I didn't get too far. Bad day, maybe" or something like that. Most confident guy I've ever talked to. I was impressed by that - to totally bomb and be cool about it. Good for him.
The 3-year old anecdote is a bit pointless. It literally could have been a bad day. I've burnt myself out on a problem the night before and absolutely bombed simple interview questions, too. Or it just happened to be the least competent engineer at Meta. It doesn't give much information on their average employee, though
Oh totally. In general I don’t think you can conclude anything about anyone, really. Yesterday they were someone. Today someone else.
We had the same experience with Meta engineers. One candidate had been with Meta/Facebook for seven years and had nothing to show for it. They had an incredibly hard time articulating what work they actually did. It was something related to storage, but pretty much every answer was "well, actually someone else does that part". Also same experience with basic coding, no actual skills, yet somehow manages to have a CS degree.
Someone has to be doing the actual work at Meta, but that might not be the people who are seeking out new jobs. So we get this false impression that their engineers are a bit... not good, because those are the ones actually leaving.