25 Year Old Staff Eng @ Meta (Promotion Story)

Video Description

Evan King went from Junior (IC3) to Staff (IC6) at Meta 3 years out of college. After that he quit FAANG to start a few companies that were each acquired. In this conversation we go over his career growth, his transition to startups and what he learned along the way. We discuss: • What got him promoted to Staff in 3 years • What stands out in Meta’s culture • Creating and leading a new team at IC5 • Differences between big tech and startups • Regrets looking back • Advice for his younger self Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:28) Getting into programming (09:34) Leetcode (15:45) Picking his first team (22:00) P*nis story (25:13) Mid-level promo (29:03) How to ship code fast (35:28) Senior promo (52:45) Staff promo (1:12:02) Meta impact culture (1:13:16) On being a tech lead (1:16:46) Influence without authority (1:19:29) Management vs Eng (1:26:46) Why leave Meta (1:36:25) Technical learning (big tech vs startups) (1:40:26) When to build a startup (1:44:27) How much he worked (1:49:02) Biggest career regret (1:51:54) Advice for new grads & past self Podcast links: • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4F3Wv74oQoWTsg7KaxHGrg • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/staff-engineer-meta-by-age-25-evan-king/id1777363835?i=1000684357936 Where to find Evan: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-king-40072280/ • His Company: https://www.hellointerview.com/ Where to find Ryan: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman Referenced links: • Evan's post on Substack: https://www.developing.dev/p/new-grad-to-staff-at-meta-in-3-years • Ryan’s eng blog for Meta (part of IC6 promo): https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/04/video-engineering/instagram-video-processing-encoding-reduction/ • Meta’s graph database, Tao: https://engineering.fb.com/2013/06/25/core-infra/tao-the-power-of-the-graph/