Thank you for all of this information @romanhn, I really appreciate it.

I'm surprised to hear about the level of hands-on coding skills needed for an EM interview, but it puts a different perspective on applying.

> I had the ability to take the time off to focus on interview prep

This is a good takeaway

> My cynicism about the whole process only grew, as exactly nothing from my prep was relevant to the day-to-day job at Facebook.

I've conducted interviews for IC and managerial roles myself recently, and this is a common problem. It's unfortunately part of modern hiring processes.