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Marius Schulz grew to a Senior Staff Engineer (IC7) at Instagram by redefining expectations three times (once for each promotion). We talked through each promotion and how he did it. There were also interesting learnings from when his promotion got blocked once even though he greatly exceeded expectations. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/instagram-senior-staff-eng-ic7-on • YouTube: https://youtu.be/OXJHfb_lZII • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...
Jayendra Jog left Robinhood and raised $35m to start his own crypto startup (Sei Labs). Before he left, he got jaded about software engineering career ladders yet was coasting through promotions at Robinhood. I asked him about how he did that along with a bunch of questions about when to leave your job, how to raise money, and what to expect as a founder. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/quitting-robinhood-and-raising-35m?open=false • YouTube: https://youtu.b...
Brian Attwell grew to Senior Staff at Uber by age 25. After that he left Uber to join CloudKitchens (Travis Kalanick’s current startup) and quickly became the CTO after his team doubled in size every 6 months. I asked him about how he did it. He also had a bunch of interesting takes about big tech and stories about Travis Kalanick and Steve Jobs. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/cloudkitchens-cto-on-intelligence • YouTube: https://youtu.be/egNtHu4q-vI • Apple...
Joakim Recht grew to a Distinguished Engineer at Uber and I asked him what it took to get there. We covered his full career including the project that got him promoted, what makes a great software engineer, and learnings from promo committees. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/uber-distinguished-eng-on-unfair • YouTube: https://youtu.be/feNh_ubBAMI • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0MX9PyeCzDhdlyRv6slwIX • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/th...
This episode features Ilya Grigorik, a Distinguished Engineer at Shopify, recounting his path from founding PostRank, its acquisition by Google, and his subsequent career at Google where he intentionally shifted from a management track back to an Individual Contributor role. He discusses the nuanced "tour of duty" approach to switching between IC and manager, the ambiguous yet demanding nature of Principal+ engineering roles, and his philosophy of building a diverse "talent stack" to be "the only" rather than "the best" for a more resilient career. Grigorik also shares insights on overcoming creative filtering and offers advice for aspiring engineers.
This episode features Bobby Holley, who rose from intern to CTO of Mozilla Firefox, offering a candid look at his career. He delves into the intense browser wars with Google, Mozilla's unique open-source culture, and the development of Rust and Quantum CSS. Holley provides insights on career progression, emphasizing impact over promotions, and shares his experience with the evolving criteria for a Distinguished Engineer. The discussion concludes with his perspective on the emerging AI browser wars and Mozilla's critical role in safeguarding an open, user-centric internet.
In this episode, David Fowler recounts his extraordinary 17-year career at Microsoft, advancing from intern to Distinguished Engineer through 11 promotions. He discusses the impact of permissionless projects like NuGet and SignalR, the evolution of Microsoft's culture under Satya Nadella, and invaluable advice on career growth, mentorship, and work-life balance in a large technology company. Fowler emphasizes the importance of agency, strategic delegation, and amplifying one's unique strengths for long-term success.
David Singleton, a seasoned engineering leader from Google and Stripe, delves into critical aspects of career growth, emphasizing continuous learning and the pivot from individual contributor to management. He shares unique insights on scaling engineering organizations, including the "engineer-cation" concept for senior leaders, effective communication strategies, and building remote sites. The episode also covers Stripe's approach to achieving high reliability and its non-Leetcode hiring process, culminating in Singleton's new venture, DevAgents, and his reflections on leadership and company culture.
In this special FAQ episode, Ryan Peterman reveals the unexpected reason for its creation and dives into the story behind launching The Peterman Pod, driven by a desire to improve speaking skills and share senior IC career narratives. He discusses the success of top episodes, his evolving trailer strategy, and how he sources dream guests, emphasizing audience input. Ryan also candidly shares the challenges of podcasting, like managing verbal acknowledgments, and the difficulties of balancing content creation with a full-time tech job, while expressing gratitude to his growing community.
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....
Sash Zats, an Instagram Staff Engineer, discusses his unconventional career path, characterized by frequent team switches driven by curiosity rather than traditional impact metrics. He shares insights into working on diverse projects, including early News Feed delight, experimental hardware, Instagram's blockchain initiative, and the rapid pre-launch development of Threads. Zats highlights the value of prototyping, self-direction, and building a broad network, ultimately leading to his departure from Meta to pursue a more agile, startup-like environment.
Former Amazon VP Ethan Evans recounts his transformative career path, from initial struggles with abrasiveness leading to two firings, to a successful rise at Amazon. He details the nuances of VP promotions, working with Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy, and Amazon's unique performance management systems like stack ranking and PIPs. Evans provides invaluable advice on developing soft skills, navigating corporate politics, and understanding the realities of leadership.
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 Timestamp...
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 t...
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 ...
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 equit...
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.
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...
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 ...
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...
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 (0...
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...
Rahul Pandey shares his unique tech career journey, from a small startup acquired by Pinterest to growing from Junior to Staff at Meta, navigating promotions and exploring management. He discusses the decision to leave big tech to co-found his YC-funded startup, Taro, contrasting startup and large company environments and offering advice on career growth, networking, and taking initiative.
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: ...
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://in...
