Meta (formerly known as Facebook) is going through a massive transition. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is essentially betting his company’s future on the “metaverse,” an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) ecosystem powered by Meta headsets and hardware. At the same time, the company faces significant antagonism from rival social media platforms (TikTok, Snap), other tech companies (Apple in particular), and federal legislators.
Earlier this month, a sweeping article in The New York Times suggested that Meta had undergone an internal and external hiring spree, with employees on the company’s various social media properties encouraged to snap up spots on the AR and VR teams. Job postings on the company website currently feature hundreds of AR and VR roles.
But Meta isn’t just looking for AR and VR skills. It’s still a massive tech company with multiple divisions and products, which means there’s just as much hunger for those who can wrangle databases or maintain iOS apps. According to Emsi Burning Glass, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country, these are the tech skills that popped up most often in Meta/Facebook job postings over the past 90 days:
Based on this list, it’s clear that Python is perhaps the number-one tech skill to learn if you want to land a job at Meta (aside from knowledge of Facebook, of course). That’s understandable, as Python is an immensely popular generalist programming language with lots of applications. Python also tends to slither its way into highly specialized industries such as data science; there’s every chance it could become an immensely popular language for building and maintaining AR/VR environments, as well.
If you’re interested in learning Python, swing by Python.org for its handy beginner’s guide. Those who are visual learners might opt to study Microsoft’s video series, “Python for Beginners,” which features dozens of short lessons (most under five minutes in length; none longer than 13 minutes) in the various aspects of Python. As you expand your knowledge, also consider tutorials from Datacamp (whose Introduction to Python course includes 11 videos and 57 exercises), Udemy (which offers a variety of free introduction courses, including one for “absolute beginners”), and Codecademy.
