New graduates are leaving faculty and heading into a troublesome labor market—entry-level roles are dwindling, managers are cautious of hiring Gen Z candidates, and AI continues to automate extra jobs. However Meta is actively on the hunt for recent expertise, and it’s prepared to pay the large bucks for the brightest younger minds.
The $1.8 trillion expertise firm has a number of entry-level jobs available on the market: a Full-stack software program engineer, and a number of product software program engineer roles. And fortunate for Gen Z simply getting their begin in tech, the roles don’t require a decade of expertise. To qualify, candidates solely want a bachelor’s diploma in a related discipline like pc science, pc engineering, or utilized sciences.
High candidates for the full-stack and one of many software program engineer roles must also have accomplished a university-level course, internship, thesis, or 12 months of labor in one of many following: PHP and Hack, C++, Python, react framework, coding points, or massive scale storage infrastructure or frameworks. The opposite iOS software program engineer job necessitates a 12 months of expertise in abilities like object-oriented software program improvement, multithreading programming, and Linux or Unix.
It’s additionally a plus that these Meta roles include envy-inducing salaries; they pay wherever from $176,000 as much as $290,000 yearly, alongside different perks like bonuses, fairness, and advantages. Nevertheless, WFH-loving candidates gained’t be capable to clock in from their couches—every full-time position is in-person, whether or not that be working at Meta’s Washington or California places of work.
What CEO Mark Zuckerberg is searching for in high expertise
Candidates vying for the aggressive spots may contemplate finding out what Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he seems to be for in expertise.
The tech pioneer and Harvard dropout has revealed that abilities outweigh a flashy faculty diploma in his hiring philosophy—however it must be famous that these entry-level Meta roles nonetheless require a bachelor’s. Zuckerberg seems to be for job candidates who’ve mastered a talent and might apply it throughout enterprise areas on the firm. What they studied in class issues lower than their means to get issues executed and innovate.
“If people have shown that they can go deep and do one thing really well, then they’ve probably gained experience in the art of learning something and taking it to an excellent level, which is generally pretty applicable to other things,” Zuckerberg instructed Bloomberg final 12 months.
Six-figure entry-level roles are welcome in a bleak entry-level job market
Meta’s entry-level roles are a welcome addition to a bleak Gen Z job market. Current graduates have been as soon as promised that finding out fields like pc science, coding, or engineering would assure them six-figure salaries after faculty. However now, AI automation has flipped the whole lot on its head. Earlier this 12 months, the Washington Publish reported that computer-programmer employment dropped to its lowest degree because the Eighties—one occupation that has been hit hardest over the previous few years.
Struggles aren’t restricted to computer-programmer roles—tech corporations have been shedding younger staffers throughout the board since 2023. The proportion of Gen Z workers between the ages of 21 and 25 has been minimize in half at expertise corporations over the previous two years, in response to a Pave examine from this 12 months. These younger professionals accounted for 15% of the workforce at massive public tech corporations, like Meta, in January 2023; by August 2025, they solely represented 6.8%. And the scenario isn’t fairly at large non-public tech corporations, both. Throughout that very same time interval, the proportion of early-career Gen Z workers dwindled from 9.3% to six.8%.
There appears to be a transparent wrongdoer that’s graying Silicon Valley’s workforce: companies are being pressured to do extra with much less, and automate human jobs. In fact, the roles with the best duties are the primary to go, disproportionately affecting younger hopefuls trying to begin their skilled lives. Matt Schulman, the founder and CEO of Pave who had early-career expertise at Fb (now Meta) and Microsoft, has witnessed this shift in his business. Whereas Meta has made headlines for poaching OpenAI and Google DeepMind staffers with $100 million signing-bonuses within the AI race, at its core, the corporate is understood for chasing up-and-coming expertise.
“Most public companies have fleshed out training programs that are squarely centered around new grad programs and university recruiting,” the Pave CEO, with early-career expertise at Fb and Microsoft, explains. “A company like Meta, their whole talent thesis was to go after universities, get the smart 21-year-olds, and then train them up.”
