I completed my final rounds at Meta. I heard back from the recruiter on the same day pretty quickly that they would like to set up a call and asked for Meta references. Is this a good sign? How important are the references?
It's a sign that you haven't been rejected! So that's good 😊
There are two dimensions to a reference check:
The references can be valuable if you have someone senior giving you a very strong referral. However, not having references is not a bad sign (e.g. Alex didn't have references coming into Meta).
For more discussion about references, see my answer at Can you please suggest me any names from Meta to put as references?
Also some good discussion at: Meta specific question for referrals
This is probably a good sign, though I am surprised at the speed (interview feedback can take a long time to crunch, especially for E6 candidates). I wonder if this is something they do for everyone...?
As Rahul mentioned, Meta references aren't necessary so don't try to game them or stress out too much about it.
Best of luck!
Thanks, Alex & Rahul! This is for an E5 role! Had initially interviewed for E6, but got downlevelled after the initial phone screen.