The Peterman Pod

Ryan Peterman

4.9 (44)
TECHNOLOGY

Sharing the transparent career stories of technical people. Hosted by an ex-Staff engineer at Instagram

1D AGO

PyTorch Eng Director: Promo Hacking, Industry Shifts, Regrets | John Myles White

John Myles White recently left his role as a director of engineering at Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) so we spoke freely about promo culture, how big tech has changed, and how his career grew. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/aPfnP4iAIH8 • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/msl-eng-director-promo-hacking-industry 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘆: • Cursor 3: a unified workspace for building software with agents, check it out at https://cursor.com/ • My ergonomic keyboard project, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/ 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 0:00 - Intro 0:54 - Is he bullish on MSL 5:23 - Running promotions at Meta 15:15 - Growing at Meta 22:22 - Julia core language contributor 29:24 - Academics failing into industry 31:48 - Stats book recommendations 38:02 - Biggest career regret 41:05 - Advice for his younger self 42:46 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-myles-white-115697180/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/johnmyleswhite • Personal Website: https://www.johnmyleswhite.com/ • Github: https://github.com/johnmyleswhite 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲: • Evaluating the design of the R language - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240040602_Evaluating_the_Design_of_the_R_Language • Stats book he mentioned (not affiliate link) - https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Agnostic-Statistics-Peter-Aronow/dp/1316631141 • Stats book he mentioned (not affiliate link) - https://www.amazon.com/All-Statistics-Statistical-Inference-Springer/dp/0387402721

44 min
APR 27

Turing Award Winner: Data Abstraction, Dijkstra, Distributed Systems | Barbara Liskov

Barbara Liskov is a Turing Award winner known for her work in programming languages and distributed systems. We discussed the major problems she solved in her career, stories about Dijkstra, getting rejected from Princeton because she was a woman and misc topics around her work. 🔸 My keyboard Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/T9CGjbPZeaM • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/turing-award-winner-data-abstraction 𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Go To Statement Considered Harmful: https://homepages.cwi.nl/~storm/teaching/reader/Dijkstra68.pdf • Viewstamped Replication: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall09/cos518/papers/viewstamped.pdf 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 0:00 - Intro 1:00 - Getting rejected from Princeton 2:53 - The software crisis 9:03 - The drawbacks of Python 10:17 - Getting into distributed computing 13:09 - Paxos vs Viewstamped replication 21:44 - The significance of Dijkstras letter 25:04 - Why she stayed in academia 30:39 - Why her award was questioned 33:51 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗮: • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Liskov 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

35 min
APR 20

Turing Award Winner: Postgres, Disagreeing with Google, Future Problems | Mike Stonebraker

Mike Stonebraker is a Turing Award winner famous for his contributions to fundamental database technologies. We discussed the story behind building Postgres, where he disagrees with Google/Amazon on databases, and what he's working on now. 🔸 My keyboard Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/YPObBOwIrHk • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/turing-award-winner-postgres-disagreeing 𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Red book of database readings: http://www.redbook.io/ • BEAVER: An Enterprise Benchmark for Text-to-SQL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.02038 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 0:00 - Intro 1:03 - How he got into databases 6:43 - Competing with Oracle 9:07 - What made Postgres special 15:55 - One size fits none 21:37 - Why he disagreed with Google 29:14 - Why he chose academia over big tech 30:58 - Replacing state in an OS with a DB 42:02 - Future problems in databases 51:36 - Technical book recommendations to learn databases 52:20 - Advice for younger self 55:52 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗲: • His current company DBOS: https://dbos.dev/ 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

57 min
APR 13

AWS Distinguished Eng: Learning From 3000 Incidents And How Engineering Is Changing | Marc Brooker

In this episode, I talked to Marc Brooker, a distinguished engineer at AWS who started there as a new grad and rose through the ranks. We discussed technical learnings from 3,000+ cloud system postmortems, how software engineering is changing with AI, how to find impactful problems and much more. 🔶 My keyboard Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/u3GjIXP9N0s • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1qX2GfpbzxzGpGvDZVINdO?si=wsDGZo9PTbCNalKVybFVnA • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/aws-distinguished-eng-learnings-from 𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Post we discussed on hobbies and apparent expertise: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/04/20/hobbies.html • Post on software engineering changing: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2026/02/07/you-are-here.html • Post about Senior engineers and AI: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2026/03/20/ic-leadership.html • Post on Junior engineers and AI: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2026/03/25/ic-junior.html 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 0:00 - Intro 1:27 - Finding problems that matter 11:42 - Learnings from 3000 postmortems 23:58 - Why caches are bad 29:37 - How AI will change software engineering 36:49 - Advice for junior engineers given AI 44:02 - Thoughts for senior engineers 49:59 - Why engineers should write 57:51 - Visibility and apparent expertise 1:04:23 - AWS engineers he admires 1:06:53 - Technical book recommendations 1:09:06 - Advice for his younger self 1:10:37 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-brooker-b431772b/ • Twitter/X: https://x.com/MarcJBrooker • Personal Blog: https://brooker.co.za/blog/ 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

1h 12m
APR 6

Ex-Head of Eng at Instagram: Career Regrets and Learnings | James Everingham

This is James Everingham, former head of engineering at Instagram and a veteran of the tech world with experience at Netscape. We talked about his unconventional start in the industry, learnings from every leg of his career, and regrets he has looking back. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/VIF5Fm8NdE8 • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/ex-head-of-eng-at-instagram-career 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 0:00 - Intro 0:57 - Kicked out of college 5:35 - FBI showed up at his house 7:43 - Pre-IPO Netscape experience 25:19 - Joining Instagram as head of eng 29:12 - Why shrinking teams improves velocity 32:59 - Working with Mike Krieger 37:16 - Leading Cryptocurrency project at Meta 42:30 - What he is working on now 54:29 - Career regrets 56:27 - Advice for his younger self 57:42 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗝𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jevering/ • Twitter/X: https://x.com/jevering • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@jevering 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

59 min
MAR 30

Retired Amazon VP: How Corporate Politics Work And How To Win | Ethan Evans

Ethan Evans is a former VP at Amazon has seen pretty much every possible type of corporate politics. Now that he's retired, he could share everything he'd seen including stories about empire building, hidden politics, reorgs, senior promos and dealing with bad managers. 🔸 The keyboard I'm building: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/6WaeGfLnRvc • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/amazon-vp-reveals-everything-hes 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 00:00 - Intro 2:33 - Empire Building 31:54 - Stealing scope 44:03 - Managing out via reorgs 51:01 - Bad managers and mutiny 01:01:43 - Political messaging 01:11:48 - Handling politically skilled operators 01:20:01 - Orgs trying to steal scope 01:30:26 - Handling difficult people from other orgs 01:36:19 - Handling weak managers 01:46:30 - Backchanneling 01:52:04 - Influence without authority 01:58:04 - Sexual harassment 02:00:49 - Skip overruling firing 02:05:39 - How to fire managers 02:11:31 - Leverage when people are getting fired 02:24:01 - How to grow past senior eng 02:43:01 - How to avoid politics 02:48:15 - Advice for younger self 02:49:51 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/EthanEvansVP • Newsletter: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-BAdkBGjOIlccGLZ3jbLiA 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

2h 51m
MAR 23

The Co-Creator of Kubernetes On Convincing Google, Building It, and Scaling for LLMs

This is a conversation with Brendan Burns, co-creator of Kubernetes and current technical fellow at Microsoft working on Azure. We discussed what it was like building it at Google, how he got buy-in, and what he learned along the way. 🔸 My keyboard project: https://read.compose.llc/p/our-keyboard-design-reveal 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/FKijpCEH9D8 • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/the-creator-of-kubernetes-on-building 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:37 - How he convinced Google leaders 00:09:26 - Building the MVP 00:11:43 - How he made time for Kubernetes 00:25:28 - Technical details on building Kubernetes 00:38:46 - Rallying the open source community 00:50:01 - Scaling Kubernetes up for AI training workloads 00:55:31 - Reflections on getting a PhD 01:00:22 - The inevitable trajectory of software is death 01:04:16 - Top book recommendations 01:05:22 - Advice for his younger self 01:06:21 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗻: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-burns-487aa590/ • Twitter/X: https://x.com/brendandburns • Github: https://github.com/brendandburns 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

1h 7m
MAR 16

Meta Hiring Lead On Behind The Scenes of Senior+ Eng Hiring

Austen McDonald is a former hiring committee member at Meta, where he led mobile hiring and conducted hundreds of interviews. In this episode, we talked about what happens behind the scenes in a hiring committee, unethical candidates, and the role referrals play. 🔸 (Sponsor) Hello Interview's Website - https://www.hellointerview.com/ 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/nOapM8i5jr0 • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/meta-hiring-lead-on-behind-the-scenes 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:49 - What goes on in hiring committees 00:09:02 - Unethical candidates 00:12:50 - How leveling is determined 00:23:12 - Can you negotiate level mid-process 00:32:30 - How non-tech leads can signal scope 00:39:11 - Referrals and bias 00:45:28 - What the rubric looks like 00:50:00 - OpenAI and Anthropic specific discussion 00:52:22 - Most common mistakes senior candidates make 01:02:31 - How to prep depending on your level 01:08:34 - Subjectivity and bias 01:21:02 - The questions you ask at the end matter 01:23:59 - Storytelling tips 01:30:31 - How he got promoted to Senior Manager (M2) at Meta 01:33:32 - His biggest career regret 01:38:13 - The best advice he ever received 01:39:54 - Advice for younger self 01:41:46 - Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻: • LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/austenmc/ • His book - https://thebehavioral.tech/ 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

1h 43m

See All (48)

4.9

out of 5

44 Ratings

Huge fan

Feb 23

dusty-exe

Been a fan of Ryan Peterman content since the email newsletter years ago and have kept up with the pod ever since it came out. Love hearing stories and wisdom of these experienced guys.

Sharing the transparent career stories of technical people. Hosted by an ex-Staff engineer at Instagram

Creator

Ryan Peterman
Years Active

2024 - 2026
Episodes

48
Rating

Clean
Show Website

The Peterman Pod

Technology

Technology

Updated Weekly
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Updated Apr 21
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Updated Weekly
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The Peterman Pod

PyTorch Eng Director: Promo Hacking, Industry Shifts, Regrets | John Myles White

Turing Award Winner: Data Abstraction, Dijkstra, Distributed Systems | Barbara Liskov

Turing Award Winner: Postgres, Disagreeing with Google, Future Problems | Mike Stonebraker

AWS Distinguished Eng: Learning From 3000 Incidents And How Engineering Is Changing | Marc Brooker

Ex-Head of Eng at Instagram: Career Regrets and Learnings | James Everingham

Retired Amazon VP: How Corporate Politics Work And How To Win | Ethan Evans

The Co-Creator of Kubernetes On Convincing Google, Building It, and Scaling for LLMs

Meta Hiring Lead On Behind The Scenes of Senior+ Eng Hiring

Ratings & Reviews

Huge fan

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The Peterman Pod

Episodes

PyTorch Eng Director: Promo Hacking, Industry Shifts, Regrets | John Myles White

Turing Award Winner: Data Abstraction, Dijkstra, Distributed Systems | Barbara Liskov

Turing Award Winner: Postgres, Disagreeing with Google, Future Problems | Mike Stonebraker

AWS Distinguished Eng: Learning From 3000 Incidents And How Engineering Is Changing | Marc Brooker

Ex-Head of Eng at Instagram: Career Regrets and Learnings | James Everingham

Retired Amazon VP: How Corporate Politics Work And How To Win | Ethan Evans

The Co-Creator of Kubernetes On Convincing Google, Building It, and Scaling for LLMs

Meta Hiring Lead On Behind The Scenes of Senior+ Eng Hiring

Ratings & Reviews

About

Information

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