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Meta·Machine Learning Engineer·Onsite - System Design / Architecture·Senior

SeniorPrefer not to say
Jun 2026

Summary

ML engineer system design round at Meta, one question about building a comment moderation system at scale. Pretty open-ended, which I wasn't fully prepared for.

Questions Asked (1)

Q1

Design an automated comment moderation system.

System DesignTechnical Trade-offsProduct Sense & Ideation
Author's notes

Spent the first few minutes going too broad, talking about rule-based filters before the interviewer nudged me toward the ML side of things.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Start by clarifying the product requirements and scale (e.g., billions of comments, multiple languages, real-time moderation). Then propose a multi-stage ML pipeline that balances precision, recall, and latency, and discuss trade-offs between automated and human review.

Pro tip: Emphasize the importance of a feedback loop where human moderator decisions continuously retrain and improve the models, and discuss how to measure and mitigate false positives to avoid over-censorship.

1. Clarify Requirements and Scale

Ask questions to understand the volume, languages, content types, latency requirements, and definition of harmful content. Establish success metrics like precision, recall, and user impact.

2. Design the ML Pipeline

Outline a multi-stage system: fast filtering (e.g., keyword/regex), lightweight classifiers for triage, and heavy models for nuanced decisions. Include components for text, image, and video moderation.

3. Address Model Training and Data

Discuss data collection, labeling (including human-in-the-loop), handling class imbalance, and techniques for multilingual and multimodal moderation. Mention active learning and continuous retraining.

4. Handle Trade-offs and Edge Cases

Explain how to balance precision vs. recall, latency vs. accuracy, and automation vs. human review. Discuss adversarial attacks, context-dependent content, and appeals.

5. Define Evaluation and Monitoring

Propose offline metrics (e.g., F1, AUC) and online metrics (e.g., user reports, moderator efficiency). Describe A/B testing, shadow deployment, and monitoring for drift and bias.

Key Points to Mention

  • Multi-stage pipeline with cascading models to optimize latency and cost
  • Human-in-the-loop for labeling, review, and continuous improvement
  • Handling multilingual and multimodal content (text, images, video)
  • Trade-offs between precision and recall, and how to set thresholds based on product goals
  • Adversarial attacks and evolving language (e.g., slang, obfuscation)
  • Evaluation metrics and monitoring for model drift and bias

AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.