Working at FAANG

Background

In July 2024 I took an opportunity to work at the infamous Meta. The position was a Contract position through a vendor in San Diego.

While it was a risky proposition for me as I had a very secure position as an engineer at Xifin where I was leading my own team I decided to make the switch for a few reasons:

1. I wanted to know exactly what it was like working at a large tech company

2. I wanted to know if I could I live up to my own expectations and contribute in a meaningful way as a team member (usually I lead my own projects)

3. I hoped it would open more opportunities for me and give my career a shot in the arm

What was my experience?

The contract I was on ended in December 2024 due to organization restructuring. But, I believe I was able to make good use of my time at Meta and gained quite a bit of experience

Meta lived up to expectations

I was surprised to find that everyone I met was extremely active in the internal tools. There was very high visibility into what every single employee was doing on a given day. The level of collaboration was much higher than I expected which was a welcome surprise.

There is an element of sink or swim because people are extremely busy trying to meet their own goals and show their leadership that they are a productive member of the team. However, if you show effort people will take time to assist if you are blocked for some reason.

How did I perform?

I like to think I performed exceptionally well considering the time needed to learn all of the internal tools.

- I was by far the highest contributor on my team, completing almost 4x as many tasks (most of which were high priority) as the next highest team member.
- I participated in a hackathon in October expanding my network to other teams at Meta and fixed over 70 tests.

- I had my first oncall experience which went smoothly

What would I have done differently?

I'm not sure if there is anything that could have been done to prevent the reorganization but, at times like these it's always important to reflect on what you could have done better (there's always something).

If I had another chance I would put more effort into finding more ways to contribute. I think I was always waiting for my leadership to give me tasks to complete. But, I saw that most Full Time Meta employees seemed to find ways to be productive when they had downtime. Whether it be testing a new feature on Horizon Worlds or contributing to documentation.

What about future opportunities?

I'm not sure how this will impact my career. I know a 6 month contract does not have the best optics but, I am still hopeful that this experience will be a net positive for me and show future employers that I can make significant impact quickly no matter how complex their codebase is.