Staff Engineer Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

Hi all! So I joined Meta about 7 months ago and things seemed to be going well. I was complimented on how quickly I ramped up, there was talk of fast tracking a promotion, engineers from other teams have requested to work with me again, and I was given the option to select what kind of work I wanted to do this half as I had multiple lands in my TNTE half across a few areas of the tech stack. I picked some work that was recommended to have good technical depth as that felt like the place to best showcase my abilities. Well, since the new year, the staff level engineer I am working with feels like they are setting me up. They constantly shoot down my ideas/talk through or over me and then give the feedback (through my manager, not to me) that I'm not driving the project or other vague things I cannot interpret (manager also agrees they are vague). It also feels like they are holding my diffs hostage (has sometimes cancelled lands to make comments that aren't correct and end up amounting to no actual code change) and has straight up told me to hold off on QEs to later start them later themselves and then loads me up with busy work. I feel like I am being setup to fail or get poor feedback and it feels horrible. I am consistently putting in 16 hours days to try and keep up with their demands. I discussed with my manager about it and didn't feel like it's going to get resolved, this engineer seems to have a lot of equity in the org. My manager said to not take it too hard and that they "hold a high bar", but this isn't holding me to a high standard, it feels slanderous. Is it too early to switch teams? How quickly can this process occur? I don't know how I would survive even a few more months like this. Any advice would much appreciated.

Hey Everyone, would there be interest in a topic, on how to attract a sponsor who is invested in your growth at least 1/10 as much as we are. Over the years, I have realized in addition to being sincere and making an impact, we need the right projects to make an impact and the right people to take notice. I feel like I cannot catch a break. I have been able to uplevel and switch, get an upper level from tier 2 -> FAANG (L5), and stayed there for many years. Thriving. Until my project was canned, and I was laid off. My current team is at a tier 2 company, and I have already made significant impact, but my manager is hung up on some negative feedback that was given to me early on (3 quarters ago) The current staff even insidiously tried taking away my projects from me. I stood up for myself and got the project back with my managers help. I have good feedback, on PR, good velocity and mentoring engineers to uplevel. But my manager is still biased. I strongly believe that actions speak louder than words. Would love to know the series of master classes that can help me with Me and your advice. Would love to know your thoughts on this when is it time to stay and focus on growth or when is it time to move on and start afresh ? My eventual goal is L6 at Google / Netflix / Meta - Adjacent

What is the prevailing culture within the organization, and how does it manifest in day-to-day operations and decision-making? The prevailing culture within an organization is the shared values, beliefs, norms, and practices that shape the social and psychological environment of a business. This culture influences employee behavior, motivates management styles, and affects decision-making processes. What are those for Meta? What are the hidden things to notice and to worry about? For example: Cliques and Silos: Pay attention to the formation of exclusive groups or departments unwilling to share information. This can indicate a fragmented culture that hinders collaboration. Resistance to Change: If there is noticeable resistance to new ideas or changes in procedure, the culture may be rigid and resistant to innovation. Overwork and Burnout: A culture that consistently expects long hours and overwork may prioritize short-term gains over long-term employee well-being and sustainability. Turnover Rates: High employee turnover can be a red flag for issues within the organizational culture such as lack of growth opportunities, poor management, or a toxic work environment. Office Politics: Pay attention to how much politics influence decisions and progress. A culture heavily influenced by politics rather than merit can demotivate employees. Feedback Mechanisms: Lack of mechanisms for providing constructive feedback, or a culture where feedback is ignored, can indicate a culture not open to self-improvement or employee development. Diversity and Inclusion: Observe whether the organization actively supports diversity and inclusion, not just in policy but in practice, reflecting a culture of respect and equality.

Hi All,

Provided one is working full time it might not be possible to market your product or side projects on professional networking sites like LinkedIn mainly because it may ring a bell and other obvious reasons.

I think other social platforms like Reddit and Twitter can work and are relatively safer in terms of getting noticed my your manager or company folks.

One option I can think of is to ask your friends or hire a marketing person to do this for you but it will cost me.

Curious to know the opinion from others. Thanks,

A kind of out-there question... What is the range of possible problems, solutions, breakthroughs, insights, skills, etc. that come after you've earned your stripes as one of the best human engineers on Earth?

I am moving to a faang company in a month for a staff level position (serving my notice period). Since I have my freetime, what should I prepare to ensure I have a good ramp up? I want to make sure I start the job with a good note and quickly make impacts. It has been 4 years since I transferred, so my capabilities to adapt might be rusty Any checklists or advice would be great. Thank you

I'm an E5 iOS engineer reporting to an M2 at a Big Tech company. I am the mobile lead for a complex mobile-heavy project spanning 2 other teams. This is a high visibility project that's on the VP Eng's & VP Product's radar. This project had 4 E6s: E6 iOS engineer on partner team #1 delivered an onboarding guide with 70+ compilation errors and took a month to fix all the bugs blocking our integration. He did not test his code at all before delivering it to us. E6 iOS engineer on partner team #2 delivered a component that did not tokenize SSNs properly, resulting in raw SSNs -- this would have caused an s0 incident, but my team fortunately caught it before it went to production. He also did not test his code at all before delivering it to us. My team's E6 BE engineer spent a month fixing it for that team, resulting in delays to our project's BE. My team's E6 BE engineer had a falling out with my M2, so he switched teams, leaving us in a bind since our only other BE engineer (E5) on this project had resigned at the end of last year. We got a replacement E6 BE engineer, but he is very slow, requires a lot of handholding, and most of his PRs have serious bugs -- I feel he's performing like an E4. A junior iOS engineer joined our team at the same time as he did but delivered more complex features in the same amount of time. I switched to BE to de-risk the project after I took care of all the iOS fires. I've already fixed more BE bugs than the replacement E6 BE engineer. Of the 4 E6s, I feel the one who switched teams was the strongest, but my M2 said that E6 did not exhibit ideal E6 behavior because we're over a month late due to BE delays and we keep discovering more and more BE bugs. The E6 also changed the design 3x when fixing the SSN issue. The M2 told me not to use that E6 as a role model, but the other E6s are even worse!

How can I unblock engineers on the team without getting into the weeds and debugging the issue myself or pair programming with them? Right now, I create work tickets and add context so engineers can easily pick them up. Engineers will then come to me with technical problems as they get blocked on these tickets, which requires a lot of time from me.

Here are some ideas of improvements, but I could be wrong for Meta culture? Self-Reflection and Continuous Learning: Constantly assess your own performance, seek feedback, and commit to ongoing learning and development. Passion and Dedication: Cultivate a deep passion for your work or goals. Greatness often stems from a strong emotional investment and dedication to excellence. Taking Risks: Be willing to take calculated risks. Moving from good to great involves stepping out of comfort zones and embracing uncertainty. Vision and Purpose: Develop a clear vision and purpose. Great achievements are often driven by a compelling goal or mission. Building Relationships: Foster strong relationships and networks. Collaborative efforts and support from others can fuel the journey from good to great. Resilience: Prepare to face setbacks and failures. Greatness requires perseverance and resilience in the face of challenges.

An E6 and I recently joined an existing team and are working with an E6 who has all the historical context on the project's requirements/limitations in his head. The PM is brand new to the team and the company. The EM and designer are also fairly new. The newer E6 often proposes architectural directions that the more tenured E6 shoots down due to this context. Is there a good way to extract all this context from the more tenured E6? I feel like we're often throwing things on the wall and just seeing what doesn't get shot down -- things get shot down more often than not, unfortunately. The more tenured E6 said it'll take too long to document all the context.

I interviewed at a big startup that recently IPO'd and was offered a staff engineer role verbally after the interview loop concluded. I've been in touch with the recruiter to get a formal offer for around 3 weeks now but it just keeps getting delayed. Questions:- Does getting the actual offer take such a long duration (2-3 weeks post verbal confirmation) at relatively bigger companies? I've only worked at startups and scaleups before. I have other offers that might expire soon but I don't want to take a call without this offer. I've shared this with the recruiter but I feel it hasn't helped expedite the process. Do I keep following up or give up on this offer and work with the rest of offers?

Before I was at Amazon in Cambridge, England. I came to enjoy the quality of life there, but recent changes made me switch to Salesforce in India. The work-life balance here is good, but even as a staff engineer, I’m having trouble finding scope - I own just a small piece of the overall system my team’s responsible for. I was able to recently get an offer from Spotify for a UK office, which expires in a month. However, it’s for Software Engineer 2, a level below their senior level. This isn’t ideal as one of my goals is to be a Staff engineer at a reputable company. Should I stay at Salesforce where I’m already a Staff level and have solid work-life balance or move back to the UK to work for Spotify?

1. Team Charter: Overview of our mission and values?
2. Milestones: Key goals for 2 weeks, 2 months, 6 months - clear success indicators?
3. Key Contacts: Priority teams and individuals for relationship-building; schedule meetings? Essential tech leads and engineers contacts for insights across the org?
4. Priorities: Weekly/quarterly priorities and alignment with company goals?
5. Challenges: Major team challenges and my role in addressing them?
6. Time Allocation: Expected distribution of my time across tasks?
7. Learning Resources: Key documents or experiments to review?
8. Project Ideas: Prospective projects and their scope (T-shirt sizing)?
9. Performance Criteria: Access to the performance and progression rubric? Meeting Cadence: Preferred frequency for one-on-one meetings with manager, skip and peers? Feedback Schedule: Ideal timing for feedback sessions for peers, manager, and skip? Communication Preference: Written or verbal communication preference? Anything else? Asking for Help: Procedure and contact for assistance; onboarding buddy? Proactivity & Dynamics: Steps to proactivity and understanding organizational dynamics? Current Focus: Main current team issue or project? Recent & Future Work: Recent achievements and future plans (month, quarter, year)? Innovation Opportunities: Any tool/process gaps I can fill with a new solution? Team Charter Feedback: My understanding of our mission and KPIs; do you agree? People to Meet: List of essential PM's and people to influence across org teams. Project Ideas: Observations and potential impact with rough T-shirt sizing. Anything else, also please reply if you were my manager if you can Alex + Rahul?

The Hack language is indeed associated with PHP but it's not exactly a new version of PHP. Instead, Hack is a programming language developed by Meta (formerly Facebook) that operates within the same ecosystem as PHP and is designed to interoperate with PHP code. Hack extends PHP by adding additional features such as static typing, type inference, generics, nullable types, and async programming, among others. Hack aims to maintain the fast development cycle of PHP while offering the added reliability of static typing, enhancing both performance and safety. It was developed to address some of the shortcomings and challenges of working with large PHP codebases, especially in a fast-paced development environment. Hack and PHP codes can coexist, allowing developers to gradually migrate PHP codebases to Hack, providing a smooth transition pathway without requiring a full rewrite. Meta originally developed Hack to run on the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), which is used to execute both Hack and PHP code, significantly improving execution times compared to the standard PHP interpreter.

For example, this week I was told to work on adding a field to some legacy entity which is not recommended (i.e. you need to have a solid business justification). The whole process is very lengthy, requiring many layers of approval just for this single field change. How can I find the scope appropriate to my level?

At a previous company, a friend had an exceptional mentor who helped him climb from mid-level to senior engineer in 1.5 years. I’ve struggled to find a mentor of similar caliber. What advice do you have for finding a good mentor?

I’m currently relatively happy in my current role working on challenging problems, I like my technical peers and management and during my 3 years here I got promoted from entry level engineer to senior engineer (SD1 to SD3). However, given the scope and impact I provide, it feels like I can potentially make ~100k more (50% increase) with a job hop talking to multiple recruiters. The worry is that I lose the equity I built in my current role and be exposed to layoffs at the new company. Also, getting promoted to staff engineer for a similar compensation increase would probably take a while. I’m tempted to switch jobs to maximize compensation.

Hello folks,
I have an upcoming Staff ML Eng. interview with Meta. Could someone please suggest some good resources for behavioral preparation? I have finished the join taro course.

I just watched . Great material! In a couple of session, it was mentioned that Infra teams works differently, e.g. there is not as much XFN. Can you shed some light on how Infra team promo works?

I’d like to be a very senior research engineer in a FAANG company. I’m currently a senior engineer at my medium-sized company but I want to move closer to the research side as a more senior IC. What does it look like to be Staff+ research engineer vs software engineer? How can I build those skills now?

I am not sure if we have a option of 1:1 mentoring.

I work on a new product within a larger company. Our new product has grown to 600k ARR organically (without marketing and only a little sales) and now we’re being asked to get to 3 million ARR this year. We’re hoping to get more support from marketing and sales but I’m wondering what more on the product side can we do? As an engineer, how can I break this “revenue” goal down to help figure out the team’s strategy and what we should be building? Are there sub metrics I should be setting sub goals for? How do I estimate how much ARR a feature will get us? (Or is that just a waste of time because they’re just educated guesses?) How do I know if features on our user feedback boards will help get us new customers (and therefore more ARR) vs just making existing customers happier? Our churn has been very low so as nice as it’d be to just build what our existing users want, I want to prioritize new customers to avoid the project being shut down prematurely. Appreciate any advice on this! This is a big unknown unknown for me so even just giving me some topics/words to research will be very helpful

Background: Our team inherited a set of products which are full of spaghetti code and bad design. We are currently building a high visibility and high impact project based on the backend of this system. Although the main project UI goes on-track, some critical backend design flaws will hinder product performance and reliability within a couple of months - maybe close to or right after official product launch, which will turn our whole effort into a joke since we have executives' eyes on it. My progress this year so far: (besides my roadmap item commitment) 1. Identified a system hotspot, finished analysis & design, and convinced our EM to rewrite this module (currently 95% finished by a junior engineer.) 2. Rewrote 1 foundation module to eliminate legacy design flaw (ended up with less code, less complexity, same performance, more system reliability.) 3. Design and rewrite another foundation backend module to address legacy design flaw & unblock development of the next milestone 4. Leading on technical design and discussion of a re-architecture for the overall backend end to end flow. (simplify design, improve performance) NOTE:
- I tried to delegate 2 & 3, but no other engineers can do them after a few try since it's too tightly coupled with the rest of the system.
- our team lead is championing for all these work, which is how we are able to make room for them Benefit of these work: accelerate other engineers' work in the system cut clean with the legacy system design flaw, improve product reliability and performance ensure our team's win on the high visibility project that built on top of this backend easier oncall for the short run or long run My questions: In terms of performance review, my manager thinks this is better engineering work, while I think is closely tied to the success of our main project. What kind of evidence do I need to convince him? (My EM is not very technical) From his tone, I sense he thinks better engineering work in considered "lower priority contribution". Is this true? How do I communicate the importance of code/design quality with him? I'm trying to reach the staff level promo, does this initiative demonstrate any trait for the next level? (I'm not doing it for promo, but my EM's neglect on this makes me pretty frustrated because refactoring and rewrite is such tedious and painful work... I want to make it count) Thank you!

I was looking in the questions but couldn't find anything about it. There is a ton of info in the internet about bottom-top approach but still can't understand how it works in reallity. Any actual example projects would be great. I read many times that you as Senior/Staff should convince team/teams in an idea/project, and this is one of the ways to get promoted. An example - Staff Engineer created scope for 20+ people and worked on feature X. So my questions there: How does it happen? Is there any management involved here? I've always worked for top-bottom companies and even if we have an idea for a feature/improvement, eventually the management decides if we should go for it or not. After all, the management is the one "holding" the budget.