The Peterman Pod

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