Career Advice About Meta

I just did but we can also collect questions here that I'll answer afterward.

Work history

I recently joined Databricks as a Senior Director of Engineering. Most of my career has involved Machine Learning, and I've managed teams ranging from 2 to 200 engineers/research scientists.

Previously, I was the Head of FB Reels and Video Recommendations (Director of Engineering) at Meta, from 2019 - 2023. Before that, I was a Senior Staff Software Engineer and Tech Lead working at Google in Mountain View. I hold a PhD in Computer Science from Penn State, and my publications during that time have accumulated almost 9K academic citations.

Some questions I've heard:

• How Fair is Performance Evaluation for Tech ICs vs Managers?
• Can you give some examples of effective communication? What channels are used, level of abstraction, tone, etc?
• Any advice for a new grad to progress faster in their career?
• What are interviews even like for Director+?

Other

I've started writing detailed notes in blogs titled TLDR0. Slightly cheesy, but it stands for Tech Leadership - Direct, Respectful, Zero Ego. See the full details on my .

• Substack:
• Medium:

I'm a new staff engineer at Meta, and I know that the bar is high for E6. In particular, an E6 needs to be able to have a large influence on the roadmap and team charter, leading and creating very substantial projects.

All that being said, I want to start crafting and executing that vision as soon as I can to hit the ground running, but I'm unsure on exactly how to do that with Meta's more bottoms-up culture. At my previous job, things were more top-down (i.e. leading with authority, where software engineers work on things because their manager/leadership tells them to). How do I lead the team with this almost opposite engineering culture?

I've seen advices here in Taro that seniors should make themselves very much replaceable so that when this senior is away, someone is able to cover for them and the team could do well, which makes sense.

I thought the fact that people found the advice to be helpful, shows that making yourself replaceable isn't something that's very intuitive the first time. Like if someone didn't read the advice, they probably wouldn't have optimized for that.

I'm not quite senior yet but just curious to understand the situation (and people) better - was this thinking assumes that the amount of scope is in hyper-growth phase? Are there cases where it isn't really applicable / optimal for them to do so (and so they don't make themselves replaceable, and still do well) - then wouldn't they just continue doing it and we can't really blame them? I feel it's rare that people would change their behavior unless they really understand why.

I joined Meta very recently, so I'm in bootcamp. However, the company just announced a mass hiring freeze, so teams aren't taking in bootcampers at all effectively (there are very few exceptions). It's not clear when this freeze will end. Teams are still giving bootcampers tasks as they understand that we're pretty much "free" labor.

This is such a weird situation, and I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I like Meta as a company a lot, but I'm unsure how to make the best of this situation. Any advice?

Hi! I got a call from a Meta recruiter a few weeks ago, and I scheduled my phone screen for this coming week. However, my Practice Screening Interview did not go very well and uncovered certain gaps in my preparation.

Should I tell my Meta recruiter that I am not prepared enough for my actual screening interview next week and ask for a postponement? Or should I just go ahead with my interview and potentially squander a good opportunity?

In hindsight, I think I should have only scheduled the interview after (a) having done a decent amount of preparation, and (b) having assessed myself through some mock interviews. That's certainly a learning for the future, but I am not sure how I should navigate the current situation I am in.

Any advice, suggestions are most welcome. Thanks!

In my effort to grow my scope as an engineer (and get promoted), I’ve constantly hit the same weak spot - not “working through others” enough.

I’m always happy to identify problems and solve them, but as a relatively inexperienced engineer compared to the rest of my team, I feel uncomfortable pushing work onto others, as I often am not sure my ideas will even be fruitful.

This issue is exacerbated by the fact that my team skews very senior and I don’t feel comfortable/qualified working through them.

How should I approach this problem?

I recently interviewed with Meta for a E4 level SDE role and was given a hire decision but for E3 level instead. However since my recruiter is unaware of any E3 roles currently, they are unable to move forward with my application. I reached out to other recruiters but with no response. What could I do in this situation? Kindly advise.

Hey folks,

I’ve been on my current team for almost 1.5 years now. My hope is to get a promotion sometime this year which might require a higher performance review (Exceeds Expectations). But if I get an average performance review (Meets All), does it make sense for me to roll the dice and switch to a different team in the hopes of faster growth there?

I know there are significant costs to switching teams, and I want to make a well-informed decision if I do decide to switch teams internally.

I'm trying to figure out the proper level of fidelity here: Should I have very granular estimates or something that's not super structured - Just a high-level idea of projects with some buffer built in.

I'm curious to know how to structure this plan to ensure that one doesn't take on too much and get overwhelmed, but is also full enough so that in case of blockers on core projects, there's a pipeline of projects to switch into. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts!

I was promoted to E5 in July 2022, and I’ve been working on a challenging and highly ambiguous project since then, where my TL and another UberTL have limited ideas on how to make it a successful project and what direction the project should go. I’ve been getting little XFN support since the beginning of the project but still was able to implement and ship the MVP design I did on my own, but I still got MA rating for this. Starting Q2, things got a little better and the direction is somehow clear for H1 with specific high-level components to implement. My questions are:

1. Given this setup, since my TL has already defined the design and different components to implement, how can I still have high impact as a senior eng on the project? Previously, my EM suggested I look at myself as the CEO of the project and my TL as a consultant, but this has already changed when he got very involved in the project. I already do regular project updates on the project and have been getting positive feedback from all stakeholders that I usually get everyone on board with my positive communication with all of them.
2. My EM and TL have been giving me feedback that I need to move faster and target small wins, as opposed to working on a large goal that takes months of implementing, as was done for the MVP solution. The problem is: my whole team work past working hours up to 12-14 hours/day and sometimes on weekends too, which is not feasible for me, so I’m seeing this issue more as a relative issue compared to my teammates as opposed to being slow in execution. How can I resolve this issue? Can I talk to my EM about this?

Thanks!

I have been working less than a year at Meta and am just unable to understand and jell with the culture. There are a few main things contributing to me feeling burnt out.

Endless number of things to do...

There is equal emphasis on contributions to all axis and there is barely any overlap in the work that I need to do in order to meet expectations on all of them (except maybe Impact and Direction)

Better engineering projects that my team has scoped out are very separate from Impact projects

For people axis, I have to drive org level impact which is a thing of its own and adds on to the BE projects and impact projects.

Our oncall is extremely tough since we have a huge number of products with code dating back to 10 years ago.

Due to all this it feels like I'm having to do 4 jobs at once.

Process is bloated...

Especially for impact projects that result in changes to the product, there are a huge number of people involved, UX, DS, DE, 2 major orgs who are our customers and their representatives, Content, PM and business leaders. I get pinged for dates and status updates by 5 different people for either the same or different things every day. It is hard to keep up with and as someone who has some ADHD traits (unofficial diagnosis) and an introverted personality, just getting pinged and keeping up with responses feels exhausting let alone the coding aspect. Meta lives by its bottom up culture but in our org it just doesn't seem like its working. In my previous job, process was barely something I had to think of, and mind you we did weekly releases to 3 environments.

Laser focussed PSC conversations...

From having performance conversations 2 times per year to now having them 2 times a month seems like an extreme overkill and adds to the stress at all times. It isn't just the frequency. PSC self reports are so heavily dissected for every single word, every single metric that doing PSC right feels like a project in itself. so now it's 4 + 1 = 5 jobs.

What should I do? PSC season is again around the corner. Practically speaking I have a few options I want to get some thoughts on.

1. Change teams (requires an exception since it hasn't been a year)
2. Leave meta (and payback some comp components and say good bye to crazy TC)
3. Take a medical leave (still risk getting dinged at PSC)
4. Stick it out until the 1 year mark and revisit above options.

Like a lot of E5s, I'm working on a piece of my team's overall project roadmap, which is set by an E6 TL. The piece I own is less technically complex than other parts, but it is quite XFN heavy (great for people/direction contribution). I was wondering if this is still enough to get to E6 or do I need the higher technical complexity as well?

Hey everyone, I tried searching online about this but couldn't find much info. I did virtual onsites with Meta this week and the recruiter called me asking if I knew anyone at Meta that could be used as an internal reference.

Is this generally a good sign and does this mean I'm going to the HC?

Hey all, as you know there’s high probability of cost cutting and lay offs by increasing bar at meta. I joined the company 2 months ago and plan to travel to another country(12 hour time difference) and work remotely for about 20 days! (Whole month of December)

In lieu of new information, should I be trying to stay in the same time zone and be seen around meetings(my team is fully remote)? It will probably also help my productivity.

I’ve already booked tickets and I’m not sure what to do.

I received a verbal offer from Meta for the Android role and I'm in a team matching phase. Recently team matching has been a lot of struggle and could take weeks or maybe months. Last year a lot of hiring managers posted on LinkedIn about hiring for roles and I did exchange a conversation with them. Is it wise to ask the hiring manager on LinkedIn about open roles in their org and then telling my recruiter about it or I should go with a team that the recruiter helps me to connect with?

I'm a new E4, so I obviously have promotion on my mind. I have a good amount of experience coming into Meta (~5 YOE), so I want to move more aggressively with this promotion. If I work 40-45 hours per work with very good work ethic, what's a reasonable target to hit for the E5 promo?

I'm primarily on the back-end, but I've been put on a lot of other stacks. I've worked with www and Bloks and now I need to pick up native Android to debug a deep link issue.

I'm having a hard time with the Android issue. I took a long time just setting up the environment, choosing between VSCode, Android Studio, and OnDemand. I'm now working with adb, which I don't really understand as it's completely new to me. There's not a lot of documentation for my problem area, and it's been rough.

More broadly speaking, how can I do better in these situations and pick up new stacks faster?

Ultimately, there is no shortcut to a promotion at this level—it requires significant, consistent contributions that demonstrate your readiness to operate at a higher level of responsibility and impact. And I understand that it might not be easy on those levels, but most of the things described in the official documentation are pretty intense. Is there an easier path to get to the top by doing things smarter and not harder? For instance, there are things that people could do in other companies for bonus points like organizing hike for the team, building Movember type of volunteering event or soccer tournament for the org?

How about the following examples?

Mentorship and Team Development:

Actively mentor junior engineers and contribute to team development. This can include leading internal workshops, contributing to onboarding processes, or providing regular, constructive feedback to peers.

Community and Culture Contribution:

Contribute to the company's engineering culture and community. This can involve contributing to open-source projects, improving internal tools, writing engineering blogs, or participating in company-sponsored volunteer events.