Team Selection Q&A and Videos

Does specialization matter? I have a bunch of friends working in Big Tech, and some of them at my level started growing in 1 specific area. For example, one of them started going deep into machine learning. Do you need to make that decision when you’re a mid-level/senior engineer and what’s the criteria?

Adding on to this, I see a lot of noise in the market about various degrees and certifications to help you with specializations. Things like web3, ML, or other hot topics. This, combined with what I see my peers doing, makes me feel like this is a worthwhile or even the optimal thing to do.

As a counter-example, I have a friend who chose to specialize in ML and they’re job hopping a lot as they haven't been able to find good ML work at any of their recent companies.

Hi everyone, I have about 0 experience with machine learning and I'm thinking of ways to significantly increase my value in the future. My ideal plan is to get promoted to E5 in < 1 year and then change domains to ML (or ML Infra and work closely with ML engineers). I have almost 0 experience with ML directly, but I think they make much more money in the long run? I'm currently a backend software engineer.

Basically I want to know if it's worth investing my time & effort this or if it would be better to just eventually go for engineering management in the domain that I am already familiar with.

What sorts of reasons make people leave big tech? I recently received an offer from a tech start-up is super interested in my candidacy and they're moving what they can to try to match compensation. The move includes a promotion. It also seems like I'd have access to career growth and learning due to people there wanting to work with me to help me succeed.

However, no matter what they do, they won't be able to match the compensation I'd receive within a few years, assuming I grow into a senior engineer role and stay at a big tech company. I see driven, career-focused individuals moving out of FAANG-like companies to start-ups and non-FAANG companies, so I'm curious: what drives people to do so? When is this the right career move?

I asked this question on chatGPT, nothing proper not found. I need your help guys, currently I am interviewing with some companies which their Glassdoor reviews are really low and there are pretty bad reviews in terms of culture and engineering. Just wondering what is important things can I ask them to get know more about that, or is there any technique that bring this kind topics during the interview?

I've had 5+ friends leave Meta or quit software engineering altogether after E6. Either the responsibilities and stress were too much or what they were being asked to work on wasn't really aligned with their core interests. Business needs are always changing, so it can be a common occurrence to take a lot of ownership over a project you don't have personal interest in.

It's important to be adaptable, but I think intrinsic motivation can be hard to sustain if the people, project, or priorities are in flux.

For the older crowd, what really typifies career longevity in a software engineering?

I have often found platform teams to be quite "tech-heavy" rather than being driven solely by business. On the other hand, it is easier to convey impact for product teams for the metrics that the org cares about much more.

If I am trying to move from Mid Level to Senior Level i.e. Senior Software Engineer to Tech Lead level in my org, what kind of teams should I target?

Does choosing a certain one help you in fast-tracking your career growth?

Given this industry, switching is always somewhere in my mind. How can I figure out if it makes sense to pursue that or stay? When it comes to staying, how do I know if my current team is conducive to my overall growth and goals going forward?

I'm looking into a team switch, and I was wondering what I could ask to figure out if the team works for me. My priority is to find a team with good growth opportunities, so I can make the jump to L5 (senior). I know in Taro that it's suggested that you talk to engineers, but talking to engineers has been tricky from my experience with Target's team-switching culture. Questions that I can ask to just the engineering manager would be great!

I'm moving forward to team matching at Meta for E4 and wanted to ask the community if they had any suggestions for teams with the strongest potential for growth, especially for the New York office.

The recruiter gave me the following survey. I stated I'd be more of a "Product - Generalist" role. Would also be curious to learn more about "Systems - Generalist" as I did the System Design interview as well.

In general from what I've seen, there's a decent amount of opportunity in Instagram, Whatsapp, and Reality Labs (from product announcements and earnings calls). I've also been told to avoid monetization as it's difficult to make an impact there.

Would appreciate any advice or suggestions! Also would appreciate tips on what questions to ask Hiring Managers to assess how they grow E4s.

What is your role? (select the one that applies)

• Systems - Generalist
• Product - Generalist

What type of work motivates you the most? (select all that apply)

• Infra: Scaling challenges
• UX: Building user experiences
• Growth: Top of line impact
• Integrity: Ensuring platform safety
• Social Impact: Progressing positive change on key social issues

Who do you want to build products for? (select all that apply)

• Consumers: External, individual users of the Meta family of apps
• Businesses: External business account users of Meta family of products
• Meta Employees: Users of internal tools
• Developers: Internal and external engineers using Meta developer products and APIs

Please select which Meta Pillar(s) you’d be interested in joining? (select all that apply)

• Family of Apps: Enable optimized enforcement and support of account integrity to foster safe and meaningful communities.
• Monetization: Empower people and businesses to succeed in the global economy
• Gen AI: bring the transformative potential of generative AI to people and businesses
• Reality Labs: build tools that help people feel connected anytime, anywhere

How would you rank your preference in terms of products? (feel free to use numbers)

• Facebook App
• Monetization
• Privacy
• Messenger
• Instagram
• WhatsApp
• Reality Labs (AR/VR)

I've received a verbal offer from Meta for the Android role and I'm in a team matching phase right now. I've a couple questions:

• My recruiter mentioned that team matching is taking a lot of time these days and suggested me to take a team that's available and later could think of changing the team. What should I do here wait for the right team or take a team that's hiring right now?
• Does anyone have any recommendations for teams at Meta which are layoff proof, has interesting and promising projects coming up and a good mobile engineering foundation?

Some additional questions:

1. What do you look for in the team?
2. Do you tell your manager?

Hey guys. Hope everyone is doing well. Also using AI/ML as an umbrella term throughout - feel free to correct if needed.

Into:

Senior Web Developer. Initially started from Software Development. Developed passion for Web Development and made the move. Worked my way up to Senior position. 70% backend, 30% frontend. Currently 80-90% IC, rest managerial responsibilities. 9.5 years overall. Changed companies over time. Been in various industries.

Problem:

Going back and forth about moving into AI/ML. Motivation - high interest and demand. Fear - leaving web development skills behind.

My Current Solution:

Ask reputable sources about AI/ML day to days and job responsibilities. Lots of it seems to be marketing and all that glitters is not gold.

If all checks out and my passion is rooted in evidence then I would like to take few Stanford machine learning courses online. Once fundamentals are solid would like to go for masters degree in applied machine intelligence or similar. Start looking for jobs.

Questions:

• Since this is one of my reputable sources - would you please describe a day to day/job responsibilities for an AI/ML engineer?
• Granted everything checks out - do you think going for Masters makes sense? Given that finances and time is not the problem.
• Would you say I have to leave a large portion of web development skills behind when making the move? What are some of the transferables?
• Would I have to start as an entry engineer? Do you think Masters helps here? Ultimately I would have to pass the interviews but then there is applying for the position and being considered for it afterwards.

These are all the questions I could think of. Apologize for the length, but thought it would be helpful to give context. Please feel free to include anything else you deem helpful. Much appreciated and Happy holidays.

Hi All,

Would love to get some advice on how to ask highly pointed questions during a 30 minute conversation with a hiring manager to get the maximum info out of him regarding the team culture and the product.

Regarding my preferences...

I would love to stick fully on the Backend stack. I have experience working with Python, NodeJS, Typescript and a bit of Java, I have experience working with Infra and databases as well. I get excited working with data at scale but do not have stellar industry experience with it such that I can start being impactful on day 1.

Since this will be my first time at a big tech, I want to optimize for a decent to moderate enough ramp up time, good wlb and not being super heavy with oncall at least for my first team.

Once I get used to the pace, I'll jump around to start optimizing for impact, visibility and scope.

Here is what I have in mind for my Hiring Manager meetings but feel free to add/subtract from this.

1. Basics, what is the product/org
2. What is the team size and team structure (how many E5s, E4s etc) and tech stack.
3. What is the code velocity like on average for an E5.
4. Give me a brief idea about what the first project you have in mind for me, if not tell me about a project an E5 is currently working on.