FB lessons summary from Blind

So I scanned through all advice on fb from blind and posting it here. Would love to get comments if they are still relevant. But, I did that as a prep to join the company and be prepared. This is my giving back to this wonderful and disgusting community of blind. Facebook lessons (from blind) Summary: 1. Worry about impact, if unclear, ask your managers. 2. Understand group dynamics. 3. Meets all is fine. Re-calibrate how hard you are working. 4. Post often, get attention. 5. Do interviews or bootcamp mentoring. 6. System skews to remove negative elements than create positive impact. Beginning: * Don’t overcommit to things in the beginning. There is an endless amount of work that could be done (understaffed intentionally to force prioritization) but only a few will be impactful. And Facebook puts impact over everything. However, it takes time to judge what the most impactful items are that you could be working on. And when you do you don’t want to be overloaded/have over promised on a bunch of non-impactful stuff. So, make sure to get input from your manager especially, if XFN teams start asking you to do stuff. * Have fun, work hard, make a ton of friends. * work backwards. create impact rather than thinking of promotion from day 1. * Talk to your manager, group dynamics matter a lot so understand that when you join team. If you are joining a group which has lot of high performing E5 and you are not outshining them then you will not win race ahead of them. * Learn the expectation matrix for your role. * The culture does not pressure us to be anything but ourselves. I work 40hrs a week as do many others. Fb rewards “impact” not work hours. I would suggest you ask your manager what projects would be the most meaningful, prioritize those, and do not spend time on other stuff. Impact and Prioritization: * Don’t work on every task that falls in your lap. Only work on stuff that directly contributes to your “impact.” * Welcome! Be good at prioritization (especially as a TPM). Learn what matters and have opinions about how to achieve it. Dont let other comments here scare you: nobody wants you to work crazy hours or burn yourself out. * You’ll mostly be working in an unstructured environment. Don’t just “deliver features.” Make sure you plan enough in advance so that you don’t hit roadblocks. Come up with deadlines for yourself, and give yourself lead time when working with partners like design, content strategy, PM, etc. * Execute quickly but also well. If you’re not sure at first, talk about it with others. If you get buy off from your team and boss, you’re less likely to run into trouble later. * Do 20 interviews, if possible do bootcamp mentoring. Performance Reviews & Success: * Performance reviews are 2x a year and it’s easy to forget what you’ve done 6 months prior when you write your reviews so document it throughout the year. * It’s a fast-paced environment and there’s almost too much info- I think it’ll be a big change for you so just know and expect and embrace it. * There are tons of resources here for you to succeed. They’re big on taking care of their employees and internal career growth. * Advertise your work. Internal posts matter in a flatter / bottom-up company. * Agree with folks here. You really need to understand the expectations for your current level first. At FB you will be held accountable for any gaps you have. Try to understand and close those gaps before considering the next level. * Make sure you are picking up the work which has scope of visibility, impact in the terms of metrics, skip level exposure, etc. don’t get involved in out-of-scope work voluntarily until manager is aligned with it. * If manager sucks, or things did not work out down the line, change the teams asap. You might feel this will screw up one year appraisal but it’s still fine. Don’t wait till the point you get pip. * Plan in detail what you’ll do each half, get explicit alignment with your manager that that’s enough, measure everything, and communicate often (plans, discoveries, plan changes, and results). * Basically, if someone decided that they do not like you for whatever reason, they have plenty of avenues to smear your name under the guise of "helping you grow". The system is skewed to eliminate anyone with negative feedback. Work Life Balance: * WLB can be okay depending on team but come here with your eyes wide open. Fb is not a place to chill. The system is setup to make you constantly work. 6-month performances with 3-month check-ins, peer pressure with teammates constantly moving blazing fast. Most teams move at a rapid pace. * You haven’t been through one review cycle. Meets all is fine, seriously and can still lead to promo. And MM does not lead to pip unless you get multiple. You need to recalibrate how hard you’re working. * Learn the expectation matrix for your role. PSC (performance cycles) are intense at FB. The goal is to drive impact through your work and to choose projects that align to the expectation criteria you are performing against.... but also writing your own review in a way that makes it crystal clear for your manager to know how you are (hopefully) exceeding expectations. Good luck! ——