The Peterman Pod

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 process. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/i1iBweuOQI4 • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/meta-senior-staff-i...

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 good mentorship looks like, and advice for senior engineers who are stuck looking to grow to Staff. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/airbnb-staff-eng-on-how-to-not-get • YouTube...

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 series of promotions across different teams and projects. I interviewed him about everything he learned along the way 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/new-grad-to-principal-en...

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 interviewed her about what she learned along the way. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/anthropic-eng-leader-and-ex-senior • YouTube: https://youtu.be/b5-d8u-c99s • Apple: https://p...

Hi all, it's been such a fun project for me this year launching this podcast and trying my best to make the content as helpful as possibleAppreciate everyone who has taken the time to watch my videos and give feedback on how to make it betterIt wouldn't be the same without your support! Next year I plan to work hard to keep improving the content, see you in 2026 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 00:00 - Intro 0...

Rong Yan went from a frontline manager at Meta to a Senior Director at Snapchat in 3 years. I interviewed him to ask what led to that rocketship career trajectory in management. We went over how he job hopped into his first Director role and much more. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/frontline-manager-at-meta-to-senior • YouTube: https://youtu.be/BHlko_Mg-Jk • Apple: http...

Boris Cherny is the Creator of Claude Code but few people know his full career story. I interviewed him about everything he learned growing at Meta and for insights from his time building Claude Code at Anthropic. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/boris-cherny-creator-of-claude-code • YouTube: https://youtu.be/AmdLVWMdjOk • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-p...

Marius Schulz grew to a Senior Staff Engineer (IC7) at Instagram by redefining expectations three times (once for each promotion). We talked through each promotion and how he did it. There were also interesting learnings from when his promotion got blocked once even though he greatly exceeded expectations. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/instagram-senior-staff-eng-ic7-on...

Jayendra Jog left Robinhood and raised $35m to start his own crypto startup (Sei Labs). Before he left, he got jaded about software engineering career ladders yet was coasting through promotions at Robinhood. I asked him about how he did that along with a bunch of questions about when to leave your job, how to raise money, and what to expect as a founder. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.d...

Brian Attwell grew to Senior Staff at Uber by age 25. After that he left Uber to join CloudKitchens (Travis Kalanick’s current startup) and quickly became the CTO after his team doubled in size every 6 months. I asked him about how he did it. He also had a bunch of interesting takes about big tech and stories about Travis Kalanick and Steve Jobs. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing...

Joakim Recht grew to a Distinguished Engineer at Uber and I asked him what it took to get there. We covered his full career including the project that got him promoted, what makes a great software engineer, and learnings from promo committees. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/uber-distinguished-eng-on-unfair • YouTube: https://youtu.be/feNh_ubBAMI • Spotify: https://open.s...

Ilya Grigorik grew to a Distinguished Engineer (VP-level role) at Shopify and I asked him what it took to get there. We covered his full career including the behind the scenes of his startup getting acquired by Google, his growth to Director at Google, and what it means to operate like a Distinguished engineer. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/distinguished-engineer-at-sho...

Bobby Holley went from an intern to the CTO of Mozilla Firefox. I asked him about everything he learned in that process. We cover his full career including some interesting stories on living through the browser wars and advice on career growth. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/mozilla-firefox-cto-on-browser-war • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0MX9PyeCzDhdlyRv6slwI...

David Fowler went from an intern to a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft. That’s 11 different promotions all at the same company. I asked him about everything he learned by going through that process. 𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/intern-to-microsoft-distinguished • YouTube: https://youtu.be/d8tRM8RJ52M • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id...

David Singleton was the CTO at Stripe for 7 years before he left to start /dev/agents. Prior to Stripe, he grew from a junior engineer to a VP at Google. I recently asked him about everything he knows about career growth and being an excellent engineering leader. We discussed how Stripe hired at scale without Leetcode, why he thinks all engineering leaders should write code, the book that impacted...

We hit 25,000 subscribers! 🎉🎉🎉 Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my work, never thought we'd be here let alone this fast Had some spare studio time booked and figured I might as well use it as time for an FAQ episode. This episode is for anyone whose curious about some of the story behind the podcast Feeling very lucky, thank you all! 🙏 Also if you have any feedback for me about the...

Stefan Mai was a Senior Manager (M2) with experience across Meta and Amazon. We went over his career story in growing to M2 which is equivalent to Senior Staff (IC7) in big tech. Since he started his own company now, he was happy to be fully transparent about the behind the scenes of managing in big tech. Since he founded the interview prep company, Hello Interview, I also thought it’d be interest...

Sash Zats grew to be a Staff Engineer (IC6) at IG despite switching teams 10 times in 9 years. His career journey was a series of jumps to exciting projects and letting career growth happen as a byproduct. I interviewed him to show you how team switches can play out. We discussed: • How 10 team switches in 9 years affected his career • The story behind the Instagram blockchain initiative • His 2 d...

Ethan Evans went from being fired twice because of poor soft skills to getting promoted to Vice President at Amazon with a team of over 800 engineers. I asked him about everything he learned along the way. We discussed: • Being fired for poor soft skills • What VP promotions look like • Working with Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy (current Amazon CEO) • VP performance reviews • Stack ranking, PIPs and h...

Dwayne Reeves is a Senior Staff Engineer (IC7) at Meta who is the Tech Lead of the most used programming language (Hack) at the company. He started at the company as a new grad from MIT and shared the story of how his career grew. We discussed: • His promotions to Senior (IC5), Staff (IC6), and Senior Staff (IC7) • The value of type systems • Transitioning to a TLM and why he switched back • Worki...

Carey Nachenberg was a Chief Scientist at a GoogleX moonshot, a Fellow (senior most eng at Symantec) and a professor at UCLA. I interviewed him about his career story and we discussed: • Story behind his growth to IC10 (VP equivalent) • How high-level IC recruiting works • How imposter syndrome held him back • How to develop “project taste” • How AI is affecting his students Timestamps: (00:00) In...

Michael Novati got promoted to Senior Staff (IC7) Eng at Facebook by the age of 27. He did it while the company was still called Facebook so he had a bunch of interesting pre-IPO stories. In our conversation, we discussed: • Growth to Senior Staff (IC7) by 27 • Being the #1 code committer at Meta • Volunteering to resign if his code broke prod • Stories of working with Zuck pre-IPO • What was comm...

Simon Kindström is a Staff Software Eng (IC6) at Instagram who joined the company as a new grad and got promoted every year. He also achieved the highest ratings ("Redefines Expectations") twice which is almost unheard of. He shared stories about his high performance including what it's like to receive secret equity bonuses. In this episode, we discuss: • His promotions to Staff in 3 years • The s...

Jake Bolam grew from Staff Eng (IC6) to Principal Eng (IC8) at Instagram. He had some hot takes about diff reviews and risk (he accepts diffs that’ll break prod). He also shared interesting stories about his promotions as well as many tips on how to have IC8 impact with a solid work life balance. We discuss: • Struggling initially at Facebook • His promotions from IC6 -> IC8 • Accepting diffs t...

Philip Su grew to Distinguished Engineer (IC9) at Meta and OpenAI. He has a bunch of interesting stories about working with people like Zuck and John Carmack as well as a ton of advice for software engineers. I was really looking forward to chatting with him and enjoyed this conversation a lot. I hope you find it helpful! In this conversation, we discussed: • What Distinguished Eng (IC9) expectati...