The Developing Dev

Ryan Peterman•www.developing.dev

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Transparent conversations without fluff to help you accelerate your software engineering career

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Episodes

Instagram Principal Engineer (IC8) on Promotions, Breaking Prod, Tech Leading | Jake Bolam

Instagram Principal Engineer Jake Bolam shares his career journey from IC6 to IC8 at Meta, including insights into his slow onboarding and transition to infrastructure. He discusses his unique philosophies on diff reviews, risk-taking (even accepting diffs that might break prod), and maintaining work-life balance at a high-impact level. Jake also details his distinctive note-taking system and offers career advice.

May 31, 2025•50 min

OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Engineer (IC9) On Working With Zuck, Carmack & Career Growth | Philip Su

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 • W...

May 23, 2025•1 hr 21 min

Industry Secrets We Wish We Knew Before Graduating | Staff Eng Talk @ UCLA

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 ...

May 02, 2025•48 min

21x Hackathon Winner Turned College Dropout | Jia Chen Interview

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) Hackat...

Apr 14, 2025•34 min

Amazon Principal Engineer On Layoffs, Interviewing & Career Growth | Steve Huynh

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...

Mar 02, 2025•1 hr 19 min

Staff Engineer @ Meta by Age 25 | Evan King

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 Ti...

Jan 17, 2025•1 hr 57 min

Ex-Meta Staff Eng & YC Startup Cofounder | Rahul Pandey

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 w...

Dec 27, 2024•1 hr 21 min

28 Year Old Staff Engineer @ Google

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: ...

Nov 22, 2024•42 min

Staff at Airbnb by Age 26 | Zach Wilson

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://instag...

Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 7 min

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