How to approach politics in organization like Meta?

Thanks for all the questions! I'll answer one that I think is interesting, but I'd love for you to post the others as separate questions with additional context -- this will make it much easier to help :)

How can you demonstrate your expertise and value to others without stepping on toes or appearing overly ambitious?

Focus on the value you create for others. Your work has value — out of the 100 things you could be doing, you chose to work on this specific project or initiative. That's because you thought it could be very impactful for your team and company goals.

Because you have so much value, the updates about your work will be welcome by your team. You should expect to repeat the value of the work multiple times, and describe the updates with you as the supporting character (not the main character).

If you're demonstrating your expertise by advising on other projects, it will also be appreciated if you are helping them achieve their goal.

A few tactics to help with this:

• Generously acknowledge and praise contributions made by others.
• "Respect what came before" -- realize that in Big Tech (Meta is a prime example), there was probably a valid reason that systems were designed the way they were. Understand the context and constraints before recommending a large change.

Some great related discussions:

• [Communication] How to not make others feel like you're bragging?
• How do I become more credible, trust worthy at work?

These are all excellent questions! As Rahul mentioned, breaking them down into individual posts across the Taro forum would be really helpful - I'm happy to comment on literally all of them.

Kevin already linked the relationship building masterclass, which I heavily recommend. On top of that, I highly recommend the following playlist as the behavior is a hard requirement for Meta E6s: [Taro Top 10] How To Create Scope As An Engineer

A caveat to start: I have a general strategy in mind for the next company I join but do not have real experience to back it up (yet).

The answers to these questions will likely be found by tapping into the network of people you work with and the network of people that your work already impacts. This means reaching out to them, leading with kindness, and learning about the following, likely over time:

• What are they focused on and why
• The value they are creating
• The challenges they are facing
• The things they might need from you to succeed
• The culture they are trying to uphold and things they wish could change

In addition to the immediate team, here are two other groups of people I'd also want to talk to:

• Customers
• Leaders of organizations delivering adjacent goals indirectly related to your team

I'd make a point to ask people I meet to introduce me to three other people/teams they think I should connect with so I can get a feel for who is known for a certain thing.

The skills that'll be required here are active listening, observing others actions over time, and prioritizing high impact win/win investments with fellow doers.

Here are some related discussions and Taro resources that might be helpful:

• For a Staff engineer at a Big Tech company, what should their first 3-6 months look like?
• How do I sell the vision behind a large, org-level project?
• [Masterclass] How to Build Deep Relationships Quickly in Tech