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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.developing.dev

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.developing.dev

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.developing.dev

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/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.developing.dev

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.developing.dev

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.developing.dev

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/

• X: https://x.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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.developing.dev