David Fowler went from an intern to a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft. That’s 11 different promotions all at the same company. I asked him about everything he learned by going through that process.
𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀:
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/intern-to-microsoft-distinguished
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/d8tRM8RJ52M
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:
(00:00) Intro
(00:53) Microsofts leveling system
(03:17) Joining Microsoft
(10:18) First successful project
(16:22) Bootstrapping his own project
(25:44) His principal promotion
(37:10) His distinguished promotion
(49:51) Engineers he looks up to
(53:40) Expanding on his top tweets
(1:05:20) Big company tip on reorgs
(1:08:25) What keeps him at Microsoft
(1:17:22) Microsoft culture after Satya
(1:23:04) Career regrets and work life balance
(1:29:51) Advice for his younger self
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗱:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfowl/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/davidfowl
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman
David Singleton was the CTO at Stripe for 7 years before he left to start /dev/agents. Prior to Stripe, he grew from a junior engineer to a VP at Google. I recently asked him about everything he knows about career growth and being an excellent engineering leader. We discussed how Stripe hired at scale without Leetcode, why he thinks all engineering leaders should write code, the book that impacted his career most and many more topics.
Episode Links:
• Youtube
• Apple
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:00:56) Before Google
(00:06:34) Joining Google
(00:12:56) Deciding to try management
(00:24:15) How to decide on EM vs IC
(00:28:58) Biggest gap in managing managers
(00:34:21) The difference between VP and Senior EM
(00:37:43) How to communicate well
(00:46:14) How managers can scale themselves
(00:51:17) How to build a new engineering site
(01:01:21) What kept him at Google
(01:03:57) The story behind joining Stripe
(01:12:34) Comparing and contrasting cultures
(01:20:55) How to set culture
(01:29:25) Is Stripe too reliable?
(01:33:48) Hiring at scale without Leetcode
(01:38:06) Lessons learned working with Stripe's leadership
(01:40:31) Why leave Stripe
(01:44:55) How his AI startup plans to compete
(01:48:46) Career reflections, regrets, what went well
(01:54:03) Top book and habit that impacted his career
(01:57:40) Advice for younger self
(01:59:04) Outro
Where to find David:
• If you are a builder: https://sdsa.ai/build
• If you are very excited about what they are building and would consider joining his talent dense team, you can email David here: dps@sdsa.ai
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/dps
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpsingleton/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@davidsingleton
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@petermanpod
This episode was produced with the help of SF Podcast Studio: https://www.sfpodcast.studio/
We hit 25,000 subscribers! 🎉🎉🎉
Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my work, never thought we'd be here let alone this fast
Had some spare studio time booked and figured I might as well use it as time for an FAQ episode. This episode is for anyone whose curious about some of the story behind the podcast
Feeling very lucky, thank you all! 🙏
Also if you have any feedback for me about the show and how to make it better, I'd love to hear it. Feel free to drop a comment
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:58) Story behind the podcast
(05:30) Behind the scenes of the top episodes
(10:06) Dream guest list
(12:03) Learnings from podcasting
(13:10) Balancing content with a full time job
(14:28) Outro
Stefan Mai was a Senior Manager (M2) with experience across Meta and Amazon. We went over his career story in growing to M2 which is equivalent to Senior Staff (IC7) in big tech. Since he started his own company now, he was happy to be fully transparent about the behind the scenes of managing in big tech.
Since he founded the interview prep company, Hello Interview, I also thought it’d be interesting to talk about trends he’s seeing in AI cheating tools and how to get offers at OpenAI/Anthropic. We discussed:
• Meta Senior Manager (M2) career growth story
• Amazon vs Meta culture
• Which company had stronger engineers
• How low performer quotas & PIPs work
• Eng vs manager career growth
• Transitioning to AI/ML as an eng
• Getting offers at OpenAI and Anthropic
• Advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:59) Early career at Amazon
(05:46) Growth to eng manager at Amazon
(11:31) Storytelling tips
(16:28) Why he left Amazon
(22:59) Transitioning to AI/ML
(27:01) Senior manager (M2) promo story at Meta
(31:30) Mutiny and manager politics
(40:34) Are managers harder to layoff?
(49:50) Senior manager (M2) skill gaps
(53:21) Eng vs manager career growth
(56:27) Amazon vs Meta culture
(01:00:34) Amazon vs Meta performance
(01:05:24) Low performer quotas
(01:08:55) Can you get out of a PIP?
(01:12:23) AI interview cheating
(01:16:42) Passing OpenAI & Anthropic interviews
(01:18:33) Job hopping
(01:22:37) When he grew the most
(01:24:22) How to write better
(01:26:22) Career motivations past M2
(01:28:11) Advice for younger self
Where to find Stefan:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanmai/
• His company: https://www.hellointerview.com/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Sash Zats grew to be a Staff Engineer (IC6) at IG despite switching teams 10 times in 9 years. His career journey was a series of jumps to exciting projects and letting career growth happen as a byproduct. I interviewed him to show you how team switches can play out.
We discussed:
• How 10 team switches in 9 years affected his career
• The story behind the Instagram blockchain initiative
• His 2 diff in 6 month performance review
• What working on Instagram Threads was like pre-launch
• The value of prototyping
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:49) First team: iOS on Newsfeed Delight
(05:30) What makes a good designer partner?
(08:30) Joining a hardware team
(12:08) 2 diffs in 6 months
(15:03) Joining the Instagram blockchain team
(21:37) Joining Instagram Threads pre-launch
(28:53) Working with an exceptional engineer (Peter)
(33:02) Working on AI prototyping teams
(37:15) Reflecting on team switching’s impact on career growth
(44:35) Why leave Meta
(46:15) Advice for younger self
(47:53) Outro
Where to find Sash:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sashzats/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/zats
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Ethan Evans went from being fired twice because of poor soft skills to getting promoted to Vice President at Amazon with a team of over 800 engineers. I asked him about everything he learned along the way.
We discussed:
• Being fired for poor soft skills
• What VP promotions look like
• Working with Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy (current Amazon CEO)
• VP performance reviews
• Stack ranking, PIPs and how managers can fire anyone
• Advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:01) Experience before Amazon
(05:03) Getting fired twice & learnings
(14:02) Joining Amazon
(16:02) What VP promotions look like
(26:03) Promotion failure story
(29:14) Integrating Twitch into Amazon
(33:48) Jeff Bezos vs Andy Jassy stories
(36:53) VP performance reviews
(41:10) Stack ranking & PIPs
(46:11) A manager can fire anyone they want
(50:45) Advice for his younger self
(53:03) Outro
Where to find Ethan:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/EthanEvansVP
• Newsletter: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-BAdkBGjOIlccGLZ3jbLiA
Where to find Ryan:
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
Dwayne Reeves is a Senior Staff Engineer (IC7) at Meta who is the Tech Lead of the most used programming language (Hack) at the company. He started at the company as a new grad from MIT and shared the story of how his career grew. We discussed:
• His promotions to Senior (IC5), Staff (IC6), and Senior Staff (IC7)
• The value of type systems
• Transitioning to a TLM and why he switched back
• Working with brilliant engineers and overcoming imposter syndrome
• Advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:39) Joining Facebook
(04:52) Did MIT help with career?
(07:13) His first team
(10:37) Why static typing is superior
(13:17) The uncanny valley of type systems
(16:11) Senior Eng (IC5) promotion story
(19:24) Staff Eng (IC6) promotion story
(23:38) Manager transition story
(28:57) Managing ICs vs EMs
(32:54) Senior staff Eng (IC7) promotion story
(35:42) Impressive ICs
(40:33) Why stay at Meta
(44:28) Advice for younger self
(45:46) Outro
Where to find Dwayne:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwaynereeves/
Where to find Ryan:
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
Carey Nachenberg was a Chief Scientist at a GoogleX moonshot, a Fellow (senior most eng at Symantec) and a professor at UCLA. I interviewed him about his career story and we discussed:
• Story behind his growth to IC10 (VP equivalent)
• How high-level IC recruiting works
• How imposter syndrome held him back
• How to develop “project taste”
• How AI is affecting his students
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:54) Growth to Fellow at Symantec
(13:13) The most complex malware
(16:13) Why C was faster than assembly
(17:17) Imposter syndrome
(21:28) What matters more than intelligence
(28:03) Experience at GoogleX
(34:24) Leaving GoogleX
(37:43) Experience at Lyft
(43:40) Getting credit on collaborative projects
(46:53) Becoming a professor at UCLA
(49:13) How to speak well
(53:23) How AI affected his students
(1:03:53) Career regrets
(1:07:16) Finding work you enjoy
(1:09:03) Advice for younger self
(1:11:04) Outro
Where to find Carey:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carey-nachenberg-14bbb03/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Michael Novati got promoted to Senior Staff (IC7) Eng at Facebook by the age of 27. He did it while the company was still called Facebook so he had a bunch of interesting pre-IPO stories. In our conversation, we discussed:
• Growth to Senior Staff (IC7) by 27
• Being the #1 code committer at Meta
• Volunteering to resign if his code broke prod
• Stories of working with Zuck pre-IPO
• What was common among IC7+ engineers
• How LLMs will affect the code machine archetype
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:46) Joining Facebook
(10:26) Facebook IPO experience
(16:30) His internal newsletter
(24:26) Working with Zuck
(29:50) Engs that impressed him
(36:20) Will LLMs kill coding machines?
(47:20) Operating as an IC7
(1:10:30) IC7+ only group
(1:12:55) Landing code faster
(1:18:29) Why he left Meta
(1:20:52) IC7+ talent
(1:24:28) Advice for younger self
(1:25:58) Outro
Where to find Michael:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelnovati/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Simon Kindström is a Staff Software Eng (IC6) at Instagram who joined the company as a new grad and got promoted every year. He also achieved the highest ratings ("Redefines Expectations") twice which is almost unheard of. He shared stories about his high performance including what it's like to receive secret equity bonuses.
In this episode, we discuss:
• His promotions to Staff in 3 years
• The story behind his "Redefines Expectations" ratings
• What it's like to receive performance-based equity bonuses
• His transition to management
• Why he switched from management
• Advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:34) Staff promotions in 3 years
(10:32) “Redefines” expectations ratings
(20:01) Redefining expectations without promotion?
(29:55) Staff promotion story
(41:00) Transitioning to and from management
(54:50) Secret equity bonuses
(58:14) The best interns
(1:07:50) Where most of his growth came from
(1:12:04) What keeps him at Meta
(1:15:20) Advice to his younger self
(1:17:05) Outro
Where to find Simon:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonkindstrom/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Jake Bolam grew from Staff Eng (IC6) to Principal Eng (IC8) at Instagram. He had some hot takes about diff reviews and risk (he accepts diffs that’ll break prod). He also shared interesting stories about his promotions as well as many tips on how to have IC8 impact with a solid work life balance.
We discuss:
• Struggling initially at Facebook
• His promotions from IC6 -> IC8
• Accepting diffs that break prod
• Systems for reasonable work life balance at IC8
• His note taking system in VSCode
• Advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:50) His rough onboarding to Facebook product team
(04:32) Switching to Instagram
(06:39) What IC7 scope looks like
(09:48) Thoughts on management
(10:32) Why he always makes time for others
(13:31) His IC7 & IC8 stories
(20:54) Swapping out infra for 1000s of engs
(22:37) Work life balance tips (IC6 -> IC8)
(27:26) Diffs reviews & risk
(36:07) Being a good tech lead
(42:12) Taking notes in VSCode
(47:03) Advice for his younger self
(49:54) Outro
Where to find Jake:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakebolam/• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@theregularbuiltozzy
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Philip Su grew to Distinguished Engineer (IC9) at Meta and OpenAI. He has a bunch of interesting stories about working with people like Zuck and John Carmack as well as a ton of advice for software engineers. I was really looking forward to chatting with him and enjoyed this conversation a lot. I hope you find it helpful!
In this conversation, we discussed:
• What Distinguished Eng (IC9) expectations look like
• How he got promoted to IC9
• Working with impressive engineers like John Carmack
• What made Zuck and Boz special as coworkers
• Learnings from switching between IC and EM 6x
• Why he joined OpenAI
• Advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:02) Growing to Senior Staff (IC7) at Microsoft
(06:38) Management vs IC transitions
(17:32) Demotion from IC9 to IC7 at Meta
(20:28) IC7, IC8, and IC9 expectations
(28:58) IC9 promo story
(31:30) Building a strong eng team culture
(36:16) Working with Zuck + Meta CTO
(38:57) Working with John Carmack and other impressive ICs
(41:44) Buying $23000 of coffee in a day
(45:35) Why leave Facebook
(49:25) Joining OpenAI
(55:38) Writing well as a software engineer
(1:03:00) Does software eng performance decline as you age?
(1:07:00) Building credibility as a young manager
(1:10:25) Should you be a generalist or a specialist?
(1:12:43) Advice for his younger self
Where to find Philip:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip/
• Peak Salvation podcast he referenced: https://peaksalvation.com/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Ricky (Google Engineering Manager) and I were recently invited to give a talk at UCLA for the UPE/ACM clubs. We wanted to share the industry secrets that college didn’t teach us about the tech industry, career growth, and more.
Students were able to submit questions in advance that we prepared slides for. We received a bunch of interesting questions that should be helpful to any college kids looking to get into tech. You can look at the timestamps below to jump to whatever questions you’re most interested in.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:47) Primer on SWE levels
(06:12) How to succeed as an intern?
(09:13) How did you get promoted quickly?
(11:36) How much of success is luck?
(13:32) If you had one piece of advice, what would it be?
(16:11) What if I’m not a gigachad coder?
(19:12) How to handle imposter syndrome?
(21:36) How to advocate for yourself?
(24:20) Big tech vs startups for new grads?
(30:28) How do people measure impact?
(32:17) Would an MBA help for eng management?
(33:45) How was college recruiting?
(36:10) How do you make as much money as possible?
(38:00) Parting words
(40:10) What are your current goals?
(42:02) Thoughts on job hopping?
(45:49) What Ricky works on?
(46:06) Thoughts on how AI affects engineering?
Thank you to Jordan Nguyen (ACM), Ashley Cheng (UPE), and Lune Chan (Videography) for hosting and helping produce this event!!
Where to find Ricky:
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@findingricky
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/findingricky
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Jia Chen is a 21 year old that won 21x hackathons and co-founded her own startup, all while being a content creator. She’s worked hard to succeed in tech despite attending a non-target school, and has recently dropped out to work on her startup, Sprint.dev.
We discuss:
• Winning hackathon strategies
• How to stand out as a college student
• Content creation
• Dropping out to build a startup
• College reflections and advice
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:55) Getting into hackathons
(04:10) Hackathon strategy
(15:20) Developing agency & time management
(19:27) Standing out at a non-target school
(20:19) Is college useful?
(24:28) Personal brand
(26:25) Dropping out to build a startup
(32:32) Advice to younger self
Where to find Jia:
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jia.seed/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-chen-tech/
• Startup (Sprint.dev): https://www.sprint.dev/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Steve Huynh became a software engineer at Amazon with a Liberal Arts degree. He started as a Support Engineer and eventually became a Principal Engineer (top ~1% at Amazon) before starting his own career growth YouTube channel, A Life Engineered.
We discuss:
• Why most interview prep advice is garbage
• Why most people don’t become Principal Engineers
• Amazon’s performance-based layoff culture
• How to avoid being laid off
• Regrets & advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:37) Transitioning from liberal arts to tech
(06:31) Becoming a software development engineer
(17:37) Breaking into the tech industry today
(22:56) Future of software engineering with AI
(26:06) SDE1 → SDE3 promos
(33:11) Perf-based Layoffs at Amazon
(46:22) His Principal promotion project
(59:53) Best parts of Amazon's culture
(1:05:22) His best and worst managers among 20+
(1:09:09) Career reflections
Where to find Steve:
• Newsletter: https://alifeengineered.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeEngineered
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/a-life-engineered/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alifeengineered/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Evan King went from Junior (IC3) to Staff (IC6) at Meta 3 years out of college. After that he quit FAANG to start a few companies that were each acquired. In this conversation we go over his career growth, his transition to startups and what he learned along the way.
We discuss:
• What got him promoted to Staff in 3 years
• What stands out in Meta’s culture
• Creating and leading a new team at IC5
• Differences between big tech and startups
• Regrets looking back
• Advice for his younger self
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:28) Getting into programming
(09:34) Leetcode
(15:45) Picking his first team
(22:00) P*nis story
(25:13) Mid-level promo
(29:03) How to ship code fast
(35:28) Senior promo
(52:45) Staff promo
(1:12:02) Meta impact culture
(1:13:16) On being a tech lead
(1:16:46) Influence without authority
(1:19:29) Management vs Eng
(1:26:46) Why leave Meta
(1:36:25) Technical learning (big tech vs startups)
(1:40:26) When to build a startup
(1:44:27) How much he worked
(1:49:02) Biggest career regret
(1:51:54) Advice for new grads & past self
Where to find Evan:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-king-40072280/• His Company: https://www.hellointerview.com/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
Referenced:
• Evan's post on Substack: https://www.developing.dev/p/new-grad-to-staff-at-meta-in-3-years
• Ryan’s eng blog for Meta (part of IC6 promo): https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/04/video-engineering/instagram-video-processing-encoding-reduction/
• Meta’s graph database, Tao: https://engineering.fb.com/2013/06/25/core-infra/tao-the-power-of-the-graph/
Rahul Pandey (@rpandey1234) grew to Staff at Meta through a few interesting legs of his career:
• Stanford to Startup - He joined a startup that one of his professors was starting right out of college. This startup was acquired within a year by Pinterest.
• Junior to Mid-level @ Pinterest - His promotion was rejected twice. He appealed the second rejection and got the promotion.
• Senior to Staff @ Meta - He interviewed for Senior at Meta and got a promotion through job hopping. From there, he worked towards his Staff promotion and got it.
After getting to Staff at Meta, he started his own YCombinator-funded startup, Taro. In our conversation we cover:
• What got him promoted to Staff at Meta
• Joining startups and “two-way doors”
• How his promotion was rejected twice and he appealed successfully
• When job hopping is good and when it is bad
• What real networking looks like
—
Where to find Rahul:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpandey1234/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RahulPandeyrkp
• Twitter: https://x.com/rpandey1234
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rpandey1234/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
In this episode, we cover:
00:00 – Intro
1:12 – Stanford to Startup
12:25 – Jr to Mid-level at Pinterest
30:20 – Senior to Staff at Meta
45:12 – Management (TLM) at Meta
53:40 – Leaving Meta to create a startup
1:05:32 – Career reflections
Ricky (@findingricky) went from Junior (IC3) to Staff (IC6) at Google by 28. He doesn’t consider himself the best engineer, instead crediting his blend of technical and soft skills for his ability to land promotions quickly. In our conversation, we discuss:
• Managing your manager
• Finding good projects (and rejecting bad ones)
• Imposter syndrome
• Switching from IC to engineering management
• Work-life balance
—
Where to find Ricky:
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/@findingricky
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@findingricky
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/@ryanlpeterman
In this episode, we cover:
00:00 – Intro
01:08 – Promotion timeline
02:34 – Junior to Mid-level
04:24 – Finding independence
10:39 – Mid-level to Senior
11:20 – Learning how to say no
17:26 – Senior to Staff
20:18 – Finding next-level work
23:42 – Transitioning to management
33:46 – Reflections
Zach Wilson is an engineer who grew to Staff (IC6) at Airbnb by age 26. He worked at Meta, Netflix, Airbnb and more recently has started his own company. In our conversation, we discuss:
• His promotion from Junior (IC3) to Mid-level (IC4) at Meta
• What blocked his promotion to Senior (IC5) at Meta
• Job hopping to Senior at Netflix instead
• Burning out at Netflix when given Staff scope
• Negotiating Staff at Airbnb
• Regrets & learnings
—
Where to find Zach Wilson:
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/eczachly/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@eczachly
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eczachly/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EcZachly_
• Newsletter: https://blog.dataengineer.io/
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman
In this episode, we cover:
00:27 Introducing Zach Wilson
03:14 Landing a Job at Facebook
06:33 Choosing the Right Team at Facebook
07:28 IC3 to IC4 at Meta
13:54 Trying for IC5 at Meta
23:49 Getting hired as an IC5 at Netflix
39:49 Negotiating IC6 at Airbnb
52:09 Building internal brand when job hopping
56:55 Reflection & learnings
