I've been on a lot of teams and wondering if I'm thinking about teams correctly.

• It's hard to quantify this. There are obviously many bad teams at Meta alongside teams that won't fit you. However, it's rare to find a team that feels perfect. There is some onus on your end to make the team work for you.
• For E6 promo in particular, you need to be on the same team for a while. E6 is a very lagging promotion (9 - 12 months) as they are responsible for looking very far into the future and maintaining the team's roadmap overall.
• E6s also need to be incredible at filling in the gaps. I think part of E6 is being able to take a struggling team and then fixing its major problems to stabilize it. When a E6 succeeds, the team often succeeds. Similarly, when an E6 suffers, the entire team often suffers.
• All that being said, it seems like you could invest more into team switching diligence going forward. The good thing is that at Meta, you are the most well-equipped to do this compared to almost any other company. Here's just some of the things you should look into:
  • Talk to the EM and SWEs, particularly the TL.
  • Go to their team meetings.
  • Do a bootcamp task or 2 (or 3).
  • Look into their Pulse results if possible.
  • See their diffs in Team Insights.
  • Go through Workplace activity to see what they're launching and what the process is like shipping projects there.
• Some thoughts on finding a good team for E6 promo in terms of team composition:
  • You don't want too many E6+ already on the team (4+) as then a lot of good scope is taken.
  • You want a bench of earlier E5s that you can mentor to show E6 people skills.
  • Ideally an E6+ engineer on the team is open to mentoring you (and is also good at it).

Related resources:

• Choosing A Good Team During Bootcamp
• What SWEs Should Look For In Their EMs