How is FB promoting people to E5 so fast?
Oct 23, 2019
38 Comments
Recently, I've seen more and more profiles where a person reaches E5 in < 4 years. In Amazon, Google, Microsoft this is really rare but in the I've seen at least @10x such profiles as compared to the former ones. Today I saw a guy with just 2 yrs and 3mths as a senior. Anyone in fb can explain why fb promoted this rapidly? I'd this what Facebook means as 'move fast'?
I know I'm gonna get troll answers but genuinely curious
comments
The company pays high and demands high. You win or leave (or fired). Company doesn't allow you to coast. The culture is closer that of Netflix.
The system forces E3 engineers to be promoted to E5 in 2 + 3 years. A strong E3 new grad is usually promoted to E4 within a year. If they find a right spot, show independence, and deliver impacts, it usually takes 1-2 yrs to be E5 (Sr. SWE) from E4. Because of "move fast", this means more opportunities and more results. So, the rewards are also given rapidly. It's not easy for everyone, but many of them are doing good. The number of SWEs in FB is still ~10K (assuming 1/5 of the all FTE are SWEs), which is much smaller than Google. Facebook is still relatively lean. The company got doubled in 2-3 years. Google moves slowly (certainly better code quality though). So do promotions, but better WLB.
You can't have all. FB is for fast growth and higher TC at the sacrifice of WLB. Google is for good WLB and very decent TC, but slow growth.