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Business Insider
25-05-2025
- Business Insider
A former engineer at Meta and OpenAI says there's danger in specializing too early
Early-career engineers should beware of specializing too soon, said Philip Su, a former engineer at Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI, and founder of podcast player Superphonic. "That, I think, is a tricky decision depending on how well the person knows themselves," Su said on a recent episode of " The Developing Dev" podcast when asked if it was better to be a generalist or to pick a niche and stick to it. "So there's the occasional exceptional person — like these prodigies in chess, for instance, right?" he added. "They will have been a prodigy by the time they're eight or nine years old, and so they're obviously fit to play chess. That person should specialize, because that's an unnaturally unique talent, right?" For most, there are dangers to singular focus, Su said — especially in the " age of AI." There's always the possibility, he said, that your specialization is rendered obsolete. "If you join some company and you're diehard committed to like, Technology A, right?" Su said. "What if in three years that thing becomes irrelevant, and that's all you know? You know, you're like the COBOL person hoping Y2K happens again, right? Because COBOL's not used anywhere, but that's your specialty." Before you choose to completely dedicate yourself to any one area, Su suggested taking a few years to develop a range of skills and to determine what best suits you. "If you are 22, 23, starting your career, I would, in general, encourage at least dabble in a few things before you like diehard commit," he said. Figuring out what's right for you is easiest when you're sure of what you want, Su said, not just in work, but in life. "Decisions, for me, a lot of times were hard because I didn't have clear values," he said. "If you know exactly where you're going, decisions toward getting there become a lot easier." If Su could give advice to his younger self, he added, he'd tell him to take more time to really pinpoint his desires, rather than forging ahead toward an idealized goal. "I think another thing is, I often feel like I was the dog that caught the car," he said of becoming a development manager at Microsoft, where he worked prior to OpenAI and Meta. "The problem with peaking early, you know — because I hit that level when I was probably, I don't know, 30 years old or something like this — the problem is, you're like a child actor," Su added. "The question is, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?" In addition to making sure you truly want what you're chasing, if you're particularly focused on your career to the exclusion of all else, Su said you should be prepared to make sacrifices. "So A: be sure that's really what you want. And part B is, be sure you're comfortable with other things breaking, you know?" he said. "Because that is what it will take to get there, if that's truly what you want." Some reeds "bend," Su said, while others "break" completely — so it's worth evaluating your priorities with great care. In the grand scheme of a career, he added, there's ultimately not that much of a difference between becoming a senior engineer at 30 versus 38. "So it's like, how fast do I want to be at my terminal level? Like, what's the real plan there?" Su said. "Versus, can I keep a healthy relationship with my spouse, with my kids, right? That's important."
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Being good at your job doesn't guarantee a promotion, says Meta engineer
Ryan Peterman, Meta engineer and writer of The Developing Dev newsletter, said visibility is key for promotions. If your work is impressive, it's in your best interest to let people know, he said in a talk at UCLA. Among the interns he's mentored, those who stood out were willing to be bold. Doing good work isn't enough to get you promoted, says Ryan Peterman, an engineer at Meta. You also have to make sure everyone knows about it. "If you go and build this amazing feature that nobody knows about, it doesn't matter how good it is, you're not going to get any recognition for it," Peterman said during a talk at UCLA. "And so, how do you advocate for yourself after you've done great work, which is the hard part?" Peterman worked at Instagram for six years, climbing to staff software engineer before changing focus to AI training infrastructure at Meta. He's also the author of The Developing Dev newsletter, which offers career advice to engineers without their own mentors. Making your accomplishments as public as possible is the key "last few percent" of climbing the career ladder, Peterman said. That can be as simple as writing a social media post or mentioning your success in a meeting, he added. "I think a lot of people miss this, especially if they're more introverted or they're more quiet, just taking that last step on after the good work," Peterman said. Overperforming in your current position isn't enough, Peterman said. He gives the example of a junior engineer who's "doing 10 times as many features" as the rest of their peers. Though they're likely to receive a positive performance review, they haven't proved that they're ready to take on senior responsibilities — only that they're extremely competent at tackling their current workload. "When your manager is looking to fill out like the rubric for the next level, for instance, none of the things will be checked off," Peterman said. "There's nothing about initiative or doing anything that's expected of the mid-level." Ideally, he added, you'll have a solid grasp of the "behaviors" exhibited by engineers at the level you're looking to reach — and will look to take on projects that allow you to showcase them. If you're lost as to what your organization might be looking for in more senior engineers, Peterman suggests talking to your supervisor. "I was really, really eager to get promoted, and so I was constantly talking to my manager," he said. "As soon as I got promoted to one level, I was like, 'Okay, what's the next level? What can I do?' Maybe that was annoying for my manager, but he was really helpful in teaching me what were the things that I needed to pick up." Above all else, he added, it's in your best interest to be as visible as possible. In the course of his time at Meta, Peterman has taken on five interns — those who stood out were just more willing to be bold. "When I think about the ones that were rock stars, they had the audacity to propose improvements," he said. "Even though obviously I'm the more senior person, they had the audacity to ask questions, propose improvements. Sometimes they weren't right, but I could see the logic — but many times they were." Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
09-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Being good at your job doesn't guarantee a promotion, says Meta engineer
Doing good work isn't enough to get you promoted, says Ryan Peterman, an engineer at Meta. You also have to make sure everyone knows about it. "If you go and build this amazing feature that nobody knows about, it doesn't matter how good it is, you're not going to get any recognition for it," Peterman said during a talk at UCLA. "And so, how do you advocate for yourself after you've done great work, which is the hard part?" Peterman worked at Instagram for six years, climbing to staff software engineer before changing focus to AI training infrastructure at Meta. He's also the author of The Developing Dev newsletter, which offers career advice to engineers without their own mentors. Making your accomplishments as public as possible is the key "last few percent" of climbing the career ladder, Peterman said. That can be as simple as writing a social media post or mentioning your success in a meeting, he added. "I think a lot of people miss this, especially if they're more introverted or they're more quiet, just taking that last step on after the good work," Peterman said. Overperforming in your current position isn't enough, Peterman said. He gives the example of a junior engineer who's "doing 10 times as many features" as the rest of their peers. Though they're likely to receive a positive performance review, they haven't proved that they're ready to take on senior responsibilities — only that they're extremely competent at tackling their current workload. "When your manager is looking to fill out like the rubric for the next level, for instance, none of the things will be checked off," Peterman said. "There's nothing about initiative or doing anything that's expected of the mid-level." Ideally, he added, you'll have a solid grasp of the "behaviors" exhibited by engineers at the level you're looking to reach — and will look to take on projects that allow you to showcase them. If you're lost as to what your organization might be looking for in more senior engineers, Peterman suggests talking to your supervisor. "I was really, really eager to get promoted, and so I was constantly talking to my manager," he said. "As soon as I got promoted to one level, I was like, 'Okay, what's the next level? What can I do?' Maybe that was annoying for my manager, but he was really helpful in teaching me what were the things that I needed to pick up." Above all else, he added, it's in your best interest to be as visible as possible. In the course of his time at Meta, Peterman has taken on five interns — those who stood out were just more willing to be bold. "When I think about the ones that were rock stars, they had the audacity to propose improvements," he said. "Even though obviously I'm the more senior person, they had the audacity to ask questions, propose improvements. Sometimes they weren't right, but I could see the logic — but many times they were."
Business Insider
26-04-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Networking the right way can help make your own luck in your career, says this former Meta engineer
Rahul Pandey, former staff engineer at Meta, credits much of his career trajectory to good fortune. But you can still make your own luck — at least in part. "You can manufacture luck in the sense of being curious about the people and the opportunities around you," Pandey said on an episode of " The Developing Dev" podcast. Pandey's path through tech started right out of college, when he joined a startup run by one of his former professors at Stanford. From there, he bounced from Pinterest to Meta, where he eventually climbed to staff engineer before leaving to start Taro, a YC-backed startup that offers career coaching to software engineers. To line up those kinds of opportunities takes a degree of luck, Pandey acknowledged. But they're more likely to come if you develop a network — and do it by being genuine, he said. By reaching out on the basis of real curiosity and making sure you have something to share, you can avoid making a cold reach-out feel clinical. "Me doing a lot of the job hops in my career have come from just, again, being kind of in the know on — what are the people doing that I respect?" he said. "And so I think that can be a repeatable algorithm or repeatable process that's not dependent on luck. Just change your approach to networking or talking to people, and that's a really good way to manufacture luck." If your conversations feel stilted, Pandey suggests evaluating whether there's an equal balance of give-and-take. "I do think that one of the best ways to develop a relationship with someone is not just by asking a ton of questions or asking for mentorship," he said. "A really good way to develop a relationship is say, 'Hey, here's something I've worked on which might be interesting to you.'" Pandey said the strategy of "being thoughtful about what are you sharing" makes the speaker more likely to build productive relationships. "You create gravity," he said. "People gravitate toward you because they want to get your opinion on things, too. So it's like a two-way street." When first deciding to start his career at a fledgling company, Pandey said he felt it was a high-risk, high-reward option. On the one hand, "it could go really, really well," he said; but even in the worst case, it'd be a "good story to tell." "I felt like it was almost too good of a story to pass up. I could be one of 10,000 or 20,000 engineers in Big Tech if I go join Google or Microsoft or Meta — and I had received offers at all of them," Pandey said. "But then I felt like, okay, this is a story where I had this connection, relationship with the professor. He trusts me, I trust him, and it just feels like a Silicon Valley unique story." Pandey said he used a decision-making framework of thinking of his career paths being either a one-way or a two-way door. That helped him decide between gambling on a startup or going the more traditional (and usually more secure) route of signing on with a big-name company. "Most things in your career are two-way doors, in the sense that you try it out, you learn something, you experiment, and then you can always back out," he said. "You can always decide to leave the startup and then go to Big Tech if needed, so that was one consideration.'" Another consideration: Pandey had already taken on an internship with Meta the summer before his graduation and felt like he'd already earned a level of "approval" from Big Tech. Also important, he added, was the "often overlooked" storytelling potential of the riskier route. "The narrative that you can create about what you did, why you did it, and why it's interesting — that is incredibly powerful," Pandey said. He got a lot of mileage out of being able to describe his experience as an "enterprising young engineer" who "took a bet on a startup," he added. When you're on the precipice of a big career decision, Pandey suggested it could be useful to consider what might eventually be the better story. Those opportunities, he added, are typically the ones that allow you to meet more people and take on unique responsibilities. "One of the things I tell people, on Taro or just in general when I mentor people, is that if you have a choice between A and B, and you feel like A is the one which will give you exposure to more unique opportunity, unique people, unique stories — that's a really good argument to pick option A," Pandey said, "because it just will broaden your perspective and give you that storytelling ability."
