Meta Distinguished Eng (IC9) On Influencing Engs, Failures, and Learnings
This is Adam Ernst, a Distinguished Engineer at Meta (IC9) who’s built iOS infrastructure that has impacted the entire company. We talked about how his career grew, a major failed project of his, and ...
9 Feb 40min
Instagram Principal Eng (IC8) On Building IG Stories, 1 Promo Per Half, Small Teams
Ryan Olson grew from mid-level engineer (IC4) to a principal engineer (IC8) at Instagram through a series of famous projects. The most notable was when he was the lead iOS developer that built Instagr...
2 Feb 1h 35min
Honest Big Tech Layoff Story After 25 Year Career
In this episode, I talked to "Asian Dad Energy" an anonymous big techie who was laid off after 25 years in the industry. We discussed his layoffs experience, his early career in engineering consulting...
30 Jan 50min
Ex-Citadel Quant and AI Researcher On Breaking In, Tech vs Finance Careers
In this episode, I talked to Nimit Sohoni, a Stanford PhD and AI Researcher at Cartesia who previously worked as a quant at Citadel. We discussed the differences between AI research and quant careers,...
26 Jan 58min
Meta Senior Staff (IC7) Eng's Honest Demotion Story
In this episode, I talked to Igor, a senior staff engineer who has worked at Meta, Google, and Cruise. We discussed his experience of wanting a demotion at Meta and the challenges he faced in that pro...
23 Jan 49min
Airbnb Staff Eng on How To Not Get Stuck at Senior and Untold Rules of Calibrations
Laurent Charignon was a Staff engineer at Stripe, Airbnb, and Instagram with some experience in management as well. We discussed the unspoken rules you learn as a manager, how he transitioned, what go...
19 Jan 1h 1min
New Grad to Principal Engineer (IC8) at Meta (Career Story)
Adrien Friggeri went from a new grad to a principal engineer (IC8) at Meta. He is the original TL who started Bento if you’re familiar with that infra at the company. He got to where he was through a ...
12 Jan 56min
Anthropic Eng Leader And Ex-Senior Director at Meta On Microsoft vs Facebook, Career Learnings
Fiona Fung currently supports the Claude Code team at Anthropic and was previously a Senior Director at Meta. She grew quickly through the ranks at Microsoft and Meta before joining Anthropic. I inter...
4 Jan 29min
