How much coding do you do? I hear IC6 is pretty stressful when it comes to expectations, how true is that?
Very little, and the little I did this half was mainly instrumentation and metrics related. The expectations are high, but a) promos are trailing so theoretically you’ve been doing the work at the right level already for at least a year b) the impact I produce is mainly through finding opportunities for other people, and driving those projects to completion, as well as developing the roadmap going forward. There are other more technical archetypes for IC6s that continue to have a lot of technical personal contributions but my skills are best leveraged in the type of role I am in now
Cool. That sounds like a lot of what an EM does or are EMs only focused on people management?
TC Breakdown? On a serious note, do you like your job and plan on staying indefinitely?
~500k, ~250k is cash I absolutely love it here and have zero plans to move anytime soon. The opportunity for growth, both personal and career, are extraordinary so I plan on developing my EM skills here and hopefully continuing to get promoted down that road
Any tips on how to get to a top company without a top school or top company work experience? Yea i know to do leetcode and stuff but how do you even get them to notice you when there is nothing impressive on your resume?
How different are interviews for TML vs EM? When did you join FB?
How do you interpret the mostly (if not entirely) negative press coverage and commentary about FB? Do you view FB as a net positive or negative for free societies, and to what extent do you think Zuck has gotten it wrong? Serious question.
It’s frustrating both to see missteps by the company as well as mostly over-reaching reporting. No company is perfect and there are things that I disagree with that we do, but the main thing I wish people did was not assume the worst/stupidest of Mark/FB. Almost everyone I have met at Facebook is incredibly smart and genuinely trying to do their best to do, especially to do the right thing. The evil villain theories people have of FB are particularly absurd because there are so many huge companies who really are trying to do terrible shit to the world in their quest for money. I think globally FB is a big net positive and I wish we were better at showing that off. Americans always forget that they are such a minority of the user base and that FB is still genuinely helping a lot of the world connect
Yoe when you joined fb?
9
What kept you from switching over to management? What’s your opinion of management at Facebook? How’s Production Engineering perceived internally in the company?
Nothing kept me, looking into making the switch at some point soon maybe. Management is different than other companies because managers are rarely the flat out decision makers and direction doesn’t come from top down Can’t talk about PE that much because I don’t work with them, but by all accounts they are good at their jobs which are pretty difficult
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions!
Does Facebook do lot of bargaining ? Or Do they give their best offer right up-front ?
Typical questions to give plebs some hope: How did you prepare ? How much leet ? How's your wlb at L6 vs L5 ?
Leetcode, some mock system designs, reading through cracking the coding interview. I don’t remember how much I did Leetcode but not much WLB is the same. I average 40 hours a week, with the occasional busier week that might be 50
Then you're much smarter than the average pleb. Thanks for the AMA !
What are your responsibilities? Do you work on product, architecture, platform, tools, etc.
I work on an infra team. I’m a TL so a lot of my work involves planning, finding opportunities/projects for myself and my team, working with our EM to build the roadmap both short and long term. I don’t actually code as much as anymore, and will probably move to EM in the near future