The Peterman Pod

Ryan Peterman

Sharing software engineering career stories to help you accelerate your career. Hosted by ex-Staff engineer at Instagram

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

    4 DAYS AGO

    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. ๐Ÿ”ธ (Sponsor) Hello Interview's Website - https://www.hellointerview.com/ ๐—ฃ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐˜€๐˜ ๐—น๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ธ๐˜€: โ€ข YouTube: https://youtu.be/nOapM8i5jr0 โ€ข Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 โ€ข Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/meta-hiring-lead-on-behind-the-scenes ๐—ง๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐˜€: 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 ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—”๐˜‚๐˜€๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ป: โ€ข LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/austenmc/ โ€ข His book - https://thebehavioral.tech/ ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐˜†๐—ฎ๐—ป: โ€ข Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman โ€ข Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

    1h 43m
  2. OpenAI Codex Tech Lead On How His Career Grew And How He Uses Codex | Michael Bolin

    9 MAR

    OpenAI Codex Tech Lead On How His Career Grew And How He Uses Codex | Michael Bolin

    This is Michael Bolin, the tech lead for the open source Codex repository and a former distinguished engineer at Meta. We talked about his career path, how OpenAI engineers use Codex and the difference between research-led vs engineering-led company cultures. ๐Ÿ”ธ My keyboard project: https://read.compose.llc/p/our-keyboard-design-reveal ๐—ฃ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐˜€๐˜ ๐—น๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ธ๐˜€: โ€ข YouTube: https://youtu.be/hN5ZFzWFhhg โ€ข Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 โ€ข Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/openai-codex-tech-lead-on-how-his ๐—ง๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐˜€: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:56 - Chickenfoot 00:02:45 - Working at Google 00:06:34 - Overhauling Facebook's build system 00:16:36 - Rewriting Facebook's IDE 00:26:01 - Struggles after Principal Eng (E8) promo 00:28:39 - Building a virtual filesystem for Facebook 00:35:47 - Delayed Distinguished promo (E9) and learnings 00:39:56 - Joining OpenAI 00:43:05 - Research-led vs engineering-led cultures 00:44:53 - The story behind Codex 00:51:00 - How he uses Codex 00:57:00 - Why Codex's harness is open source 00:59:50 - Top technical book recommendations 01:05:02 - Why deep technical skills are still valuable (for now) 01:11:07 - How to start projects well 01:14:27 - Advice on writing better and career planning 01:17:06 - Advice for his younger self 01:19:10 - Outro ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐— ๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ฎ๐—ฒ๐—น: โ€ข His personal blog - https://blog.bolinfest.com/ โ€ข Twitter/X - https://x.com/bolinfest โ€ข Threads - https://www.threads.com/@bolinfest โ€ข LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-bolin-7632712 ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐˜†๐—ฎ๐—ป: โ€ข Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman โ€ข Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

    1h 20m
  3. Shopify Distinguished Eng (L10) on Principal+ Engineering, Career Story, Regrets

    24/10/2025

    Shopify Distinguished Eng (L10) on Principal+ Engineering, Career Story, Regrets

    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. ๐—ฃ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐˜€๐˜ ๐—น๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ธ๐˜€: โ€ข Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/distinguished-engineer-at-shopify โ€ข Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0MX9PyeCzDhdlyRv6slwIX โ€ข Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 ๐—ง๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐˜€: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:45 - Thoughts on Waterloo 00:04:36 - Starting his own company 00:08:40 - Google acquisition story 00:14:04 - Joining Google 00:20:28 - Switching back to IC 00:26:42 - Principal+ Engineering at Shopify 00:40:09 - Career regrets 00:44:53 - Top career-impacting book 00:46:59 - Advice for younger self ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—œ๐—น๐˜†๐—ฎ: โ€ข YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@igrigorik โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/igrigorik/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/igrigorik โ€ข Personal Website: https://ilya.grigorik.com/ ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐˜†๐—ฎ๐—ป: โ€ข Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman โ€ข Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

    50 min
  4. Mozilla Firefox CTO on Browser War Stories and the Path to Distinguished Engineer

    10/10/2025

    Mozilla Firefox CTO on Browser War Stories and the Path to Distinguished Engineer

    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. ๐—ฃ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐˜€๐˜ ๐—น๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ธ๐˜€: โ€ข Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/mozilla-firefox-cto-on-browser-war โ€ข Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0MX9PyeCzDhdlyRv6slwIX โ€ข Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 ๐—˜๐—ฝ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ ๐—Ÿ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ธ๐˜€: โ€ข NYT article link: https://www.livemint.com/Industry/q2EjgGX6d5Ouwec479WSqM/For-Mozilla-Google-group-hugs-get-tricky.html โ€ข Mozilla VP twitter thread: https://www.computerworld.com/article/1722183/former-mozilla-exec-alleges-google-torpedoed-firefox-with-oops-excuses.html โ€ข Internal memo on writing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1518xKjijjEWHQb6wZjAWJrUN8liZGGI9v5pRFr9eFHo/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.1gfr5hva69qx ๐—ง๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐˜€: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:57 - Starting at Mozilla 00:04:57 - Browser wars history 00:10:55 - Google relationship changing 00:16:11 - Why work for free 00:19:02 - Projects that drove his career 00:33:12 - No performance reviews 00:34:42 - Rust adoption 00:43:33 - Career progression 00:47:54 - Should you focus on promos 00:57:14 - Distinguished promo rejection 01:00:56 - Examples of distinguished engs 01:10:54 - Advice for aspiring distinguished engs 01:14:40 - AI browser wars 01:26:32 - Biggest technical regret 01:29:11 - Book that impacted his career most 01:32:09 - Advice for his younger self ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—•๐—ผ๐—ฏ๐—ฏ๐˜†: โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbyholley โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/bhology ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐˜†๐—ฎ๐—ป: โ€ข Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman โ€ข Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

    1h 36m
  5. Intern to Microsoft Distinguished Engineer in 11 Promotions (Career Story)

    05/09/2025

    Intern to Microsoft Distinguished Engineer in 11 Promotions (Career Story)

    David Fowler went from an intern to a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft. Thatโ€™s 11 different promotions all at the same company. I asked him about everything he learned by going through that process. ๐—˜๐—ฝ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ ๐—Ÿ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ธ๐˜€: โ€ข Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/intern-to-microsoft-distinguished โ€ข YouTube: https://youtu.be/d8tRM8RJ52M โ€ข Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 ๐—ง๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐˜€: (00:00) Intro (00:53) Microsofts leveling system (03:17) Joining Microsoft (10:18) First successful project (16:22) Bootstrapping his own project (25:44) His principal promotion (37:10) His distinguished promotion (49:51) Engineers he looks up to (53:40) Expanding on his top tweets (1:05:20) Big company tip on reorgs (1:08:25) What keeps him at Microsoft (1:17:22) Microsoft culture after Satya (1:23:04) Career regrets and work life balance (1:29:51) Advice for his younger self ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐——๐—ฎ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—ฑ: โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfowl/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/davidfowl ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐˜†๐—ฎ๐—ป: โ€ข Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman โ€ข Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

    1h 33m
  6. Ex-Stripe CTO on What Grew His Career, Hiring Without Leetcode, Coding as a Leader (Career Story)

    29/08/2025

    Ex-Stripe CTO on What Grew His Career, Hiring Without Leetcode, Coding as a Leader (Career Story)

    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: โ€ข Transcript โ€ข Youtube โ€ข Apple Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:00:56) Before Google (00:06:34) Joining Google (00:12:56) Deciding to try management (00:24:15) How to decide on EM vs IC (00:28:58) Biggest gap in managing managers (00:34:21) The difference between VP and Senior EM (00:37:43) How to communicate well (00:46:14) How managers can scale themselves (00:51:17) How to build a new engineering site (01:01:21) What kept him at Google (01:03:57) The story behind joining Stripe (01:12:34) Comparing and contrasting cultures (01:20:55) How to set culture (01:29:25) Is Stripe too reliable? (01:33:48) Hiring at scale without Leetcode (01:38:06) Lessons learned working with Stripe's leadership (01:40:31) Why leave Stripe (01:44:55) How his AI startup plans to compete (01:48:46) Career reflections, regrets, what went well (01:54:03) Top book and habit that impacted his career (01:57:40) Advice for younger self (01:59:04) Outro Where to find David: โ€ข If you are a builder: https://sdsa.ai/build โ€ข If you are very excited about what they are building and would consider joining his talent dense team, you can email David here: dps@sdsa.ai โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/dps โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpsingleton/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@davidsingleton Where to find Ryan: โ€ข Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman โ€ข Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@petermanpod This episode was produced with the help of SF Podcast Studio: https://www.sfpodcast.studio/

    1h 60m
  7. Behind the Scenes of this Podcast So Far (25,000 Sub Special)

    22/08/2025

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

    We hit 25,000 subscribers! ๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰ Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my work, never thought we'd be here let alone this fast Had 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 podcast Feeling very lucky, thank you all! ๐Ÿ™ 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 comment Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:58) Story behind the podcast (05:30) Behind the scenes of the top episodes (10:06) Dream guest list (12:03) Learnings from podcasting (13:10) Balancing content with a full time job (14:28) Outro

    15 min
  8. Meta Senior Manager (M2) on Manager Career Growth, PIPs, Amazon vs Meta | Stefan Mai

    15/08/2025

    Meta Senior Manager (M2) on Manager Career Growth, PIPs, Amazon vs Meta | Stefan Mai

    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 itโ€™d be interesting to talk about trends heโ€™s seeing in AI cheating tools and how to get offers at OpenAI/Anthropic. We discussed: โ€ข Meta Senior Manager (M2) career growth story โ€ข Amazon vs Meta culture โ€ข Which company had stronger engineers โ€ข How low performer quotas & PIPs work โ€ข Eng vs manager career growth โ€ข Transitioning to AI/ML as an eng โ€ข Getting offers at OpenAI and Anthropic โ€ข Advice for his younger self Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:59) Early career at Amazon (05:46) Growth to eng manager at Amazon (11:31) Storytelling tips (16:28) Why he left Amazon (22:59) Transitioning to AI/ML (27:01) Senior manager (M2) promo story at Meta (31:30) Mutiny and manager politics (40:34) Are managers harder to layoff? (49:50) Senior manager (M2) skill gaps (53:21) Eng vs manager career growth (56:27) Amazon vs Meta culture (01:00:34) Amazon vs Meta performance (01:05:24) Low performer quotas (01:08:55) Can you get out of a PIP? (01:12:23) AI interview cheating (01:16:42) Passing OpenAI & Anthropic interviews (01:18:33) Job hopping (01:22:37) When he grew the most (01:24:22) How to write better (01:26:22) Career motivations past M2 (01:28:11) Advice for younger self Where to find Stefan: โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanmai/ โ€ข His company: https://www.hellointerview.com/ Where to find Ryan: โ€ข Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ โ€ข X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman โ€ข LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ โ€ข Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman โ€ข Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman

    1h 31m
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About

Sharing software engineering career stories to help you accelerate your career. Hosted by ex-Staff engineer at Instagram

Information

  • Creator
    Ryan Peterman
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ยฉ Ryan Peterman
  • Show Website
    The Peterman Pod

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