Staff Engineer @ Meta by Age 25 | Evan King
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
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:
• 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/
To hear more, visit www.developing.dev
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