The Peterman Pod

00:56:17

New Grad to Principal Engineer (IC8) at Meta (Career...

The Peterman Pod ·

2026/01/12

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 way𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀:• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/new-grad-to-principal-engineer-ic8• YouTube: https://youtu.be/2Sjzd9pt6Ts• Apple:

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00:29:49

Anthropic Eng Leader And Ex-Senior Director at Meta...

The Peterman Pod ·

2026/01/04

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://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:00:00 -

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00:16:20

Best Software Engineering Career Advice of 2025

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/12/29

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 2026𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:00:00 - Intro00:50 - Meta Distinguished Eng (Philip Su)05:23 - Amazon Principal Eng (Steve Huynh)06:23 - Google

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00:42:28

Frontline Manager at Meta to Senior Director at...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/12/22

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: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:00:00 -

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01:24:31

Boris Cherny (Creator of Claude Code) On How His...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/12/15

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-peterman-pod/id1777363835𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:00:00:00 - Intro00:00:59 - Starting at FB00:09:43

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00:53:04

Instagram Senior Staff Eng (IC7) On 3 Promos Through...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/12/08

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• YouTube: https://youtu.be/OXJHfb_lZII• Apple:

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00:42:34

Robinhood SWE Turned $1B+ Founder on Non-Linear...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/11/30

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.developing.dev/p/quitting-robinhood-and-raising-35m?open=false• YouTube:

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00:59:23

CloudKitchens CTO on Intelligence, Regrets, Steve...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/11/21

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.dev/p/cloudkitchens-cto-on-intelligence• YouTube: https://youtu.be/egNtHu4q-vI• Apple:

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01:26:52

Uber Distinguished Eng On Unfair Promos, Influence,...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/11/11

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.spotify.com/show/0MX9PyeCzDhdlyRv6slwIX• Apple:

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00:50:27

Shopify Distinguished Eng (L10) on Principal+...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/10/24

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-shopify• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0MX9PyeCzDhdlyRv6slwIX• Apple:

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01:35:32

Mozilla Firefox CTO on Browser War Stories and the...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/10/10

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/0MX9PyeCzDhdlyRv6slwIX• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲

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01:32:35

Intern to Microsoft Distinguished Engineer in 11...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/09/05

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/id1777363835𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:(00:00) Intro(00:53) Microsofts leveling system(03:17) Joining

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01:59:39

Ex-Stripe CTO on What Grew His Career, Hiring Without...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/08/29

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 his career most and many more topics.Episode Links:• Transcript• Youtube• AppleTimestamps:(00:00:00)

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00:15:03

Behind the Scenes of this Podcast So Far (25,000 Sub...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/08/22

We hit 25,000 subscribers! 🎉🎉🎉Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my work, never thought we'd be here let alone this fastHad 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 podcastFeeling very lucky, thank you all! 🙏Also if you have any feedback for me about the show and how to make it better, I'd love to hear it. Feel free to drop a commentTimestamps:(00:00)

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01:31:26

Meta Senior Manager (M2) on Manager Career Growth,...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/08/15

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 interesting to talk about trends he’s seeing in AI cheating tools and how to get offers at OpenAI/Anthropic. We

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00:48:15

Instagram Staff (IC6) Promo Despite 10 Team Switches...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/08/08

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 diff in 6 month performance review• What working on Instagram Threads was like pre-launch• The value of

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00:53:25

Amazon VP On Promotions, Getting Fired Twice, Working...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/08/01

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 how managers can fire anyone• Advice for his younger selfTimestamps:(00:00) Intro(01:01) Experience before

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00:46:09

Tech Lead for Meta's Most-Used Programming Language...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/07/25

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• Working with brilliant engineers and overcoming imposter syndrome• Advice for his younger selfTimestamps:(00:00)

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01:11:26

GoogleX Chief Scientist On Imposter Syndrome, Career...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/07/18

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 studentsTimestamps:(00:00) Intro(00:54) Growth to Fellow at Symantec (13:13) The most complex malware(16:13) Why C was faster than

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01:26:21

Meta Senior Staff Eng (IC7) On Zuck Stories, Rapid...

The Peterman Pod ·

2025/07/11

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 common among IC7+ engineers• How LLMs will affect the code machine archetypeTimestamps:(00:00) Intro(00:46)

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