Name: Becoming A Legendary Meta Coder: The Story of the First E7 Code Machine
Uploaded: 2025-05-26T17:39:38+00:00
Duration: 57 min
Description: There are many complex ways to get to staff and beyond, but one of them is actually quite straightforward (at least at M

Becoming A Legendary Meta Coder: The Story of the First E7 Code Machine

There are many complex ways [**to get to staff and beyond**](https://www.jointaro.com/course/grow-from-senior-to-staff-engineer-l5-to-l6/why-have-archetypes/), but one of them is actually quite straightforward (at least at Meta): *Just write more code than everyone else by a **staggering** amount.*

That's exactly what [**Michael Novati**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelnovati/) did to get to Staff \[E6\] at Meta and eventually Senior Staff \[E7\]. Since Michael was early Facebook, there actually wasn't a Staff Engineer archetype at the time to capture the way he was adding immense value to the company. So they added it! Thanks to Michael, there is now a formal "Code Machine" archetype in the official Meta internal wiki.

Michael will be breaking down:

- His story about how he became Meta's first incredibly senior "Code Machine" engineer
- The most impactful projects he worked on
- How he managed his time effectively to write so many diffs.

At the end, we'll have time for Q&A where you can ask Michael questions about topics like:

- How he grew so quickly and crafted such an extraordinary career
- What the early days at Meta were like
- Different ways to create a unique brand for yourself, your work, and your career

If you need extra help breaking into top tech companies like FAANG, [**Formation.dev**](http://Formation.dev) is here to provide you hands-on, personalized support. Join Michael and the rest of the awesome team at Formation here: [**https://formation.dev/partners/taro**](https://formation.dev/partners/taro)

There are many complex ways to get to staff and beyond, but one of them is actually quite straightforward (at least at M

Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns 3 of top 4 social networks in the world: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. More than 3.5 billion people use at least one of the company's core products every month.

Formation is the world's first AI-powered platform helping mid-level software engineers land lifechanging roles in tech.

Anybody can write code, but few can write truly good code. Code quality is arguably the biggest differentiator when it comes the market value and impact of a software engineer.

Code review is one of the most common and powerful ways for software engineers to learn. On top of increasing code quality, it builds engineering culture within a team.

Code review can catch coding mistakes and design flaws before the code reaches production

A good code review process is needed to catch bugs, increase maintainability, and guarantee a high velocity future contributors.

Code review ensures high quality software that is maintainable for the lifetime of the code

Senior Staff Engineers have influence across multiple teams and orgs. They are critical contributors to the direction of their organization, participating in strategic planning, budgeting, and resource allocation.

Staff engineers are extremely vital to any engineering team, viewing the landscape from the overall team charter level instead of individual projects.