## Podcast start [00:00] it made me recognize one thing that's very important about your career is how you interview is the most it's the highest leverage most important part of your career like more important than the impact you even have on the role it's crazy what you just said is probably one of the most important lessons that I learned at Facebook if you were to start all over again as ic3 knowing what you know today M what's one thing that You' change today I'd like to share a ## Introducing Zach Wilson [00:27] conversation that I had with Zach Wilson he's an engineer That Grew From Junior meta to staff engineer at Airbnb by the age of 26 two of his promotions came from job hopping which got me curious so we go into those details we go over his ratings his compensation and a bunch more along the way I think you'll like it since Zach is really transparent with everything so if this sounds interesting to you here's the Pod first thing is you breaking into big Tech can you run me through that story where were you in your life how did you get into big Tech yeah for sure so I started my career at a bunch of different startups started off as like a data analyst because I had dreams of being a math professor for a while and then I realized like that's probably not what I want to do because it's a lot of school to make not very much money and then I was like okay probably need to switch and then I was in started as an analyst I got in at this company called think big analytics where they taught me Hadoop but they taught me Hadoop really a long time ago it was like 10 years ago now so it was like right when Hadoop was really early and uh I owe that experience I feel like to like the main reason why I got in at Facebook because that's what they were looking for was like those kind of Big Data Technologies and so I jumped around a lot though because I tried out four different jobs in two years to like and then I got the job at Facebook and yeah it was pretty chaotic because I didn't know what I wanted to do actually cuz when I graduated I actually was like I want to be a mobile engineer but I also want to be math professor but I also want to be a data scientist and I was like I and I just was like okay I need to do all of these roles at least for a little bit to understand which one I want and that's when I landed on data engineering and I was like all right this one seems like it fits so were you a CS major I did the dual major Cs and applied math dual major yeah I actually math was first I I finished my math major first and then got the Cs major later how was the job market when you applied for interviews were you able to get interview yeah I think right now is a challenging time but I definitely found that like when I first graduated I interviewed bunch of places government jobs cuz like where I grew up there's tons of like government jobs on a military base like interviewed there interviewed in Salt Lake and all across the valley I probably got four five different interviews though like with no experience and just like the only experience I had was I was a math tutor that was all I had so yeah I feel very lucky that was like my getting into the industry experience for sure these were CS jobs yeah uh CS an analyst like it was like those two I was trying to decide between the two because yeah the government job was going to be a CS role I actually ended up not taking that role though yeah okay so how did you find your way into Facebook then yeah so it was wild because so I did one year in ## Landing a Job at Facebook [03:14] Utah and then I got like very frustrated with Utah then I moved to DC because I was like I'm just want to leave my home state want to try something new I was in DC for six seven months and then that's when a Facebook recruiter reached out to me and they were like hey you should interview and I'm like this is wild cuz back in Utah I did interview at Google twice actually for Mobile and got rejected both times and so I was like it but I applied to Google and I it felt very magical when it was like the Facebook recruiter reached out to me I was like I felt like Facebook was applying to me almost I was like okay yeah sure I'll give an interview was that through Linkedin or yeah LinkedIn for sure linkedin's been so critical for my whole career since that job at think big like in 2015 at the time you didn't post on LinkedIn no definitely not definitely not like I do now okay so they inbounded and then you interviewed with them MH and you got the role and was the interview explicitly for data engineer yes I see I see okay so then you got the role do were you applying to other places at the same time no actually I was pretty happy with my role in DC there was a lot of trajectory there it was interesting cuz when I got the offer from Facebook my role in DC countered with more money actually and I was like whoa I was not expecting them to they were like here's 100% raise and I but the thing was I didn't take it because two months before I asked them for a 20% raise and they said they didn't have the budget and I was like okay if y'all only have the budget when I have my foot out the door I know that career growth here is going to be painful it's going to be super painful even though it's more money even though it's a cheaper place to live I'm going to California for less money and a more expensive place to live because I believe in the future oh so actually Facebook paid you less it was a raise based off of what I was making but the counter offer that I got from my company in DC was more money I see I see it was like 180 was what Facebook offered me and then they countered with 200 one think okay okay sounds good so then you got into Facebook as a data engineer how was the moving to Silicon Valley and I loved it like I there was a couple other motivating factors for me to come back to California because I grew up in Utah and like being a DC being far away from family all that stuff was like also isolating and being in California is really nice cuz I'm still pretty close to Utah I can drive home any day I want in one day if I want to do that but getting into Silicon Valley was really great it was really wonderful I really felt especially those like first couple days like those boot camp tasks that they give you and they're like go and do this scavenger hunt right I don't know it always like my that first like month at Facebook didn't even feel like I was like working a job it felt like I was in like Disneyland it felt like I was this is a job like I'm going to work here it didn't really it it it was very good at getting me to adopt move fast and break things this is your company be bold all those like kind of tenants of Facebook that like it because it was such a great onboarding experience I was like wow this company is something else I love boot camp it felt like an extension of college or something because you're going to all these classes you're just learning you're not being held accountable for any deadlines or anything yet so that was really great okay so you come into boot camp how did you pick the team that you were in great question so I had three choices I was ## Choosing the Right Team at Facebook [06:33] either going to join ads I was going to join growth or I was going to join Community Support those are the three that they had me interview with and essentially for me it was like which one was different with ads they were like if you come in here you're going to provide data that's going to make Facebook millions and I'm like wow interesting impact and then for Community Support they were like if you come in here you can help prevent a lot of bad stuff on Facebook and then growth they're like if you join us you'll have a lot of fun and I was like sold and I ended up joining growth I think it was a combination of that and then the manager was more of this entrepreneurial stupy guy his name is jender he's going to make a couple other cameo appearances in the rest of this podcast but he was great guy really great guy he's still one of my best friends to this day and that's why I ended up picking core growth and notifications specifically when you joined did you know much about the career ladder or were you thinking about ## IC3 to IC4 at Meta [07:28] it no there was so many things I didn't know for example like I actually didn't even understand like L3 L4 L5 I I didn't understand I didn't understand that I was getting hired in at L3 because one of the things that like really was disconcerting to me when I got in at Facebook was like I had two years of experience I'd been working in startups and doing big data pipelines for two years and then there's these kids from Stanford who get hired and they get paid the same as me with zero years of experience and I was like this is unfair and I re that was one of the things I recognized pretty early on in my time at Facebook which also I think spoiled my time at Facebook is because I recognized hey like I got hired at the wrong level so I need to bust my ass to get to the next level which I did it was like like seven months from I was only L3 for a very short amount of time but I think that was something that definitely bothered me as I I recognized it made me recognize one thing that's very important about your career is how you interview is the most it's the highest leverage most important part of your career like more important than the impact you even have on the role it's crazy like yeah one of the things that interests me most in your story is you were able to successfully interview into promotions multiple times and I think a lot of people wonder how you do that I'm myself I'm also curious what were those conversations like when you having the interviews how did you get placed in the staff how did you get placed in the senior but yeah we'll go into that later in the podcast so you got promoted in one half so what how did that work was that expected or I recognized pretty early on that I was going to succeed at Facebook just because of I like how everything was tasked out and how there was just I had a lot of energy and I could tell that I was shipping a lot of code and I was moving a lot of things and I picked up notifications very quickly so like they had this like waterfall framework for notifications which is like essentially tracking like conversion rates or clicked rates or delivery rates all those different like funnel metrics that you can do they had this whole framework for that but the framework sucked and one of the reasons why I got that promotion was I was also like let's fix the framework but one of the things about that was like that was actually like xhp work that was not like SQL python work at all and like when my manager saw that I I was like I'm just going to fix it just going to go and learn xhp and react and fix it and he was like wow this guy knows how to solve a problem like even when it's not in data engineering it's it's a full stack problem and that was something I demonstrated really early on to my manager was that like I'm not going to let a skill set or think that's not my problem it's I'm going to learn and figure out like what needs to be done and solve the problem and yeah for sure it was did anyone tell you to to do that or no not really I think that's the other part of why I grew really close with this manager as well is because I recognized like where the impact is right not just being like okay I'm going to finish my tasks and be done with it that's how you get meets all finish your tasks do them as they were assigned especially at L3 if you do exactly what your task says you'll get meets all and it's going to be great but if you want to do more which I was very hungry to do more especially when I realized that I was hired in at the wrong level I was like okay I have to just get out of this situation as quickly as possible so that's why I also did those things because I wanted to demonstrate to them like I have experience I'm a skilled person and yeah for sure did the promo just happen or were you aware of it and expecting that to come at any point not the promo did just happen like that first promo that had no idea your manager was yeah because a couple things about it was like I actually got it wasn't even a full half because I got hired in at the end of July so I missed a month of that half as well so it was five months so but like definitely the that that promo just was like I think they recognized that I was hired at the wrong level and that's why they gave it to me it they weren't going to make me like do all the steps of getting there or whatever yeah yeah usually when motions happen in just a half yeah that means that was mis leveling and that's an opportunity if you just joined Facebook and you all of a sudden were performing as ic5 they'll just promote you quickly because they take that as it was a Miss on the hiring and I think that's one of the things that is really cool about working there and about these tech companies is that they will do that because it's not I don't know at least like growing up in Utah and everything it's not based on impact it's based on tenure right it's based on okay been here three years okay you're a senior engineer now and it's based on just like amount of time in the role and that was probably one of the most beautiful things that shifted my mentality when I moved to the Bay Area because when I was in Utah I thought that the very most money that I was going to make in my career as a software engineer was 200k 200k was going to be and that was like 15 years deep that's why that was me imagining myself at 35 and then when I get in at Facebook and I'm like no they're like okay no we're going to give you 200k now and there's a freaking trajectory to go to a million if you want and it really showed me that there's so much more to this life and so much more to like engineering than just I'm working at a company I'm closing Jura tickets but it's if you actually start to care about the impact of the business like it they reward you right they give back it's awesome because you can create so much value too you actually make more than you cost it's easy for them to Warrant paying you that much oh yeah for sure it's okay it's like you save us 10 mil we'll give you a little bit more money sure yeah sometimes when people save 10 mil I'm like just give me a little 1% I'll take a little bit yeah yeah yeah okay so you got promoted from 3: to 4 yeah because you had insane initiative sounds like you were working a lot of hours how many hours a week would you say uh so after boot camp I ramped up I would say probably 50 to 60 very common I think for me where it would be like I would get in at 9 9:30 and then I would stay till 8 8 at night cuz i' do breakfast lunch and dinner TR all meals cuz you know I'm still this way I feel like this is one of the things where Facebook ruined me a little bit is that they're like we're just going to feed you all your meals and then I'm like now I'm 30 and I'm like I still don't know how to cook and I'm like this is a problem I'm like it's a basic life skill that I was able to avoid learning and I'm like this is a rough situation but definitely I would say yeah around that got it you know so then after you got pred to four then well were you hungry for five oh ## Trying for IC5 at Meta [13:54] yeah when I got four I was like I want five in a year and I was like I'm going to work for it I'm going to crush it and yeah and it didn't happen so what was your plan did you talk to your manager yeah I did I talked with my manager so a couple things happened that I and jender like that when he was my manager I actually was pretty confident that it was going to happen problem was that next summer jender left and then there was a period of time where we all just reported to the director right and I didn't really have a great relationship with him and then eventually we got a new guy in right and it's funny cuz that guy came from Netflix which is so bizarre ultimately because then I left to Netflix I'm like Netflix and Facebook are all it's all the same people dude but I had a plan and I actually felt like I actually did deliver on the value that was necessary to get to senior but and my view on it was the fact that I had three managers that year I had jender I had Nick and I had sat and no one really had the context right because I'm like how many times do I have to tell my manager what I did why do I have to do this again and again and and I think that was ultimately the thing that kind of disrup rupted the plan but it also goes to show that having a good manager who trusts you takes time and you have to build that up with them you have to prove that to them right and they're not like the good managers will trust like implicitly and then they will only remove trust when you give them a reason to not trust you but some managers are like no you got to prove it right that's where it's like different it depends on who your manager is so you had jender for a half or how he was my manager for a little bit over a year but so after you got promoted yeah that first half did he do your PSC that half yeah for the promotion yeah for the for just yeah he did the first promotion but after that no no not the because he left after that okay yeah half as an E4 yeah and then you got a new manager yeah and that half though how's your PSC was it I got greatly exceeds okay you got greatly exceeds as an E4 in your first half okay yeah that's signal that you're doing really well yeah what prevented the promotion the next time great question I think what happened the next half was it was greatly again right like got and what they were saying was that like I was not operating as a senior engineer because I was still focusing too much on problems that I like that they were like you're taking on too much work and that they're like you are delivering as an E5 but you like they they their belief was that I would not sustainably deliver like that that was and I'm like which was something that like pissed me off a lot definitely a thing that comes up it's a bummer because you would think that the harder you work the more you would get rewarded with promotions but one of the things they're looking for is that your promotion's sustainable and it's funny because if you're working a lot to get those results people might wonder oh can he keep this up yeah what if he starts working normal hours MH is he not going to meet expectations 100% that's that was right there what you just said is probably what of the most important lessons that I learned at Facebook which is that hours work does not necessarily influence like your promotion ability there is a point where it's like hours work helps with addressing like skill gaps if you have a gap then you can cover the Gap by working more but that does not necessarily instill confidence and Leadership that you are promotion worthy right for sure definitely because they're looking for behaviors they're looking for someone that can take on more leadership not necessarily just work additional hours to have the impact so get it but also at the same time it can be you know pretty something that can make a hard worker very salty yeah yeah and I think for me what ended up happening was that next like going into the next year because those promos usually happen in like March or whatever and I after learning I'm like I'm not getting promoted I was like time to go and take the story because this is one of the things I think is super important when you think about interviewing is I knew that I had a story that would get me a senior role because guess what Facebook told me that they said I was greatly exceeding expectations and guess what know the best part about interviewing is they don't know how many hours I worked they just know what I did right they don't know how many hours I work they like in the interview they get a different vantage point of what your impact was and what you did and they don't get as much of the negative data right they don't get as much of that and so for me recognized that I was like I know I can go to any other big tech company and be a senior engineer I already knew that especially like after all the optimizations I made the notification machine learning algorithm all that stuff there was like some very technical nitty-gritty things that I did that were really impactful that I was like I know if I just talk about that in the detail that I know people are going to give me what I want so to be clear you got two great League seeds in a row as ic4 yeah which is midlevel and then you didn't get promoted so instantly you realized okay because I'm greatly exceeding I can get ic5 somewhere else yeah 100% And also the thing that blocked your promotion it's not going to be a blocker somewhere else yep yeah for sure okay so then how did you sell that as a ic5 to the next place cuz when I think of what qualifies for an ic5 if you're interviewing they'll say yeah certain number of years of experience and various other things they might also want to know what level you are at meta so how did you get Netflix level as an ic5 when you're midlevel not that many years of experience I feel like the Netflix one was there was also one more element of luck here and that element of luck is that the hiring manager was jender so I'm like all right jender you've already seen my work you trust me what's up and so that helped a lot like having the right connections that's why building a network is important that's why I'm all about brand personal brand and I think a lot of people conflate personal branding with making content on LinkedIn or like putting your voice or a blog post or making YouTube videos or whatever but there's also like this idea of internal brand which is like how are you known in the company how are you known by the people you work with and it's if you are if you're able to build a strong internal brand that's what it did it's because I worked really hard with jender and he saw what I was capable of and capable of doing because for me there was one other problem that I had with Facebook actually which was I and there was one other conversation that I had that like really frustrated me was I also wanted to not be a data engineer anymore right cuz I was like I'm done because I've been shipping so much like react and PHP and hack code and all this stuff and I even was talking to my managers like dude like compared to all the other data Engineers on this team I am writing I'm I because I even gave him the number I'm like of so I was on a team of 15 data engineers and I'm like I'm writing 90% of the JavaScript code from our team me just me and so it's I am not doing the same work that like other data Engineers are doing so I feel like I should not be a data engineer I should be a software engineer and software engineers get more Equity because because data Engineers are technically not on the E Track like their IC track they're like and so they get like it's like 30 40% less equity which is I was like that was the other thing I was like unfair I'm a software engineer I'm a real engineer and so there was one more conversation I had there that like really set me off that made me like really not want to work at Facebook anymore which was like so one was like I really wanted to be like L5 and the other one was I wanted to switch the song software engineer and when I talked with my manager about switching software engineer they were like hey we can switch you to software engineer we're gonna have to down level you though and I'm like I'm not going to be an L3 software engineer that is absurd that is patently absurd for me to do that that is an absurd statement that you even said that came out of your mouth right there why they were like you're not going to have all the skills necessary for it and again that was the thing where I point what about the stuff I'm shipping B's code over here see this stuff I've already built and that stuff didn't matter they they just looked at title and comes back to having the right manager matters so much it matters so much because then they're actually able to listen to your career goals and actually take into account all of those things right they're not just your data engineer so and for a while that was actually like standard practice at Facebook if you wanted to go from data engineer to software engineer they down leled you but not the other way around which I always thought was interesting I'm like okay so there's like this software engineer Supremacy at Facebook or something like that where they're like yeah software Engineers are here data Engineers are here it's yeah for sure that's where that was the other thing I recognized was I wanted to work on data stuff that wasn't just SQL because now I learned more and like the field has changed data engineering has changed and technically the role I had at Facebook was not data engineering it would not be titled that today today it would be titled analytics engineering which a different title right and that's like more sequal experimentation product analytics focused whereas data engineering is more about like big data pipelines and like spark and so more Technical and not not as much analytical and and that I was drawn more to that kind of stuff as well so do you think if you had a better manager that you wouldn't have been downlevel oh no I definitely not if I would have had a more supportive manager there that I would have been able to tr because guess what I have a friend who works at Facebook his name is also Ryan and he still works at Facebook and guess what his manager was supportive and he transitioned this week and he I've always I always look at his life and I'm like your life is the life I would have had if I didn't have a bad manager and he's still there he's been at meta like nine years now he's been there for a long time he's doing all all this crazy stuff like scuba and stuff like that good stuff but like for sure definitely that is definitely uh something that I believe especially because when I was talking with jender at Netflix he was like hey I don't know if I can hire you ## Getting hired as an IC5 at Netflix [23:49] in as a senior software engineer because you don't have very much experience in software engineering but he was like I can hire you in as a senior data engineer and then I can get you to transition to software engineer in six to six to 12 months and I was like perfect perfect that sounds great and so that's what ended up happening I got hired in at Netflix was there for six months and then the rest of my time at Netflix I was senior software engineer and I I worked didn't really do as much data pipeline work got it okay so going back to your transition from Facebook to Netflix yeah it was a connection with your old manager who gave gave you such a strong recommendation that you were put into a senior pipeline yep and Netflix only hired seniors okay so there wasn't any it was senior or you're not in it's different now they added levels like two years ago but yeah back in 2018 there was no staff either were you working directly on his team or yeah he was my direct manager yeah was his recommendation especially powerful cuz like I can recommend people The Meta but it's not especially powerful or anything the reason for that is because meta has more standardized interview processes that's not how it is at Netflix at Netflix it's freedom and responsibility and they give managers a lot of power at Netflix right they also give managers a lot of power to fire people and they put a lot of pressure on managers to fire people but also the hiring process is up to them yeah so that's also who they bring on is there it's more free I'm sure these things have changed a little bit because I think that actually that aspect of Netflix's culture has minuses as well it's not it's not all pluses I think there is definitely some pluses and I benefited from some of those pluses for sure and initially like when I was there I was like wow this is the best company ever how many Engineers were at the company at the time total at Netflix I think like a thousand or maybe 1500 it's quite a bit bigger now I think it's 3K now but yeah it was like yeah but definitely like over a thousand got it okay but not Facebook size right Facebook is like 10 15,000 I was like a lot right yeah yeah okay so you essentially earned your senior position as an ic3 cuz you proved yourself to to jender as a junior engineer yeah as a junior engineer he thinks okay this guy to results yeah and then later when he was building up his team it was just a matter of oh I know that guy's good I want him on regardless of all the level stuff yeah I know he's going to deliver and I want him on my team and so that got you in to get that promotion from mid-level to senior yeah okay wow okay so internal brand really does matter then it matters a lot it matters way more than you think and and so that's why it's important to like not really burn Bridges with people but also find those people who you really click with and because you never know you might be working with them again in the future yeah definitely and that was a good jump CU if you would have just stayed at Facebook you are already greatly exceeding so what more yeah you could change your behaviors and go through the promo process but that would have been slower than just going directly into Netflix definitely yeah and so was that compensation bump from oh yeah it was like almost double your compensation doubled from I what was it it was like two it was like two with L4 to 385 390 like and but all cash all cash wow okay that's pretty good yeah and so how was your time at Netflix were you thinking I guess they didn't have a notion of promotions there CU it's just all senior yeah all senior yeah so your what was your thinking you wanted to transition to software engineer M you did that where were you thinking to go from there with your career so from there I wanted to like I had a vision I had a vision of myself it's crazy that I walked away from a year ago but like I was 24 when I got on Netflix I had a vision that I was by the time I was 30 I was going to be a principal engineer like L7 L8 like and in big Tech doing just really technical deep stuff and that was my vision and I knew that I was not going to get there in data engineering and that was one of the other reasons why I knew I needed to make the switch yeah for sure and Netflix was really crazy cuz it was like very different instead of doing like regular like data pipelines that were like once a day processing it was like everything had to be in real time to detect security threats it was like very different very like Cutting Edge very like difficult work for sure so then if you wanted to get to principle how are you going to do that on Netflix great question so at Netflix how it works is essentially every year there is a compensation discussion but again they don't have performance reviews either there's no performance reviews technically there are performance reviews at Netflix but they're every quarter where your manager gives you a color you either get green yellow or red as a color where red means you're going to be fired imminently yellow means you need to pick it up and green means you're good you get that feedback every quarter which is a lot once a year they do have an annual compensation discussion but you don't talk about what you did it's all about what you could get in the market from other companies and they they'll match you and but your manager could also if they feel like you're being underpaid or whatever they can also come in and adjust your competition like almost at any time it's very different a lot fewer rules than at meta where it's got to be like every six months after a calibration and a packet and a submission it's a whole thing Netflix is very different but I think Netflix has learned because Netflix obviously there's levels now and I think that was a problem I think for me the thing that I recognized and why I didn't really care that much about oh there's no levels here was one I knew I was going to make a ton of money two I knew I was working with jender and that I knew that I still had so much more to learn from I still do because I talk with him about entrepreneurship stuff now but anyways I had so much to learn from him and I was like wherever this goes it's going to go and I know I can have a good story it comes back to like wherever you're at always think about your story about the impact that you had at the company and what you did and make it sound like a movie man make it sound cool make it sound like dude you did some really cool [ __ ] that's like a very important part of the journey since I have a tendency to leave jobs every two years or so I always have to feel like I'm satisfied with the story because that that's something that happened at Airbnb where I actually had an urge to quit earlier but then I realized I was like wait a minute I don't have a story yet I don't have a really good story yet so I stayed six more months but yeah getting that impact story is super important so when you say story you just mean a good fully delivered package of work that was impactful yeah you can sell yep 100% exactly where it's like hey if you hire me I will do this much for you in two years got it okay for instance at meta what was your story what did you use to sell to okay so at meta I did a a couple things one was in notifications I developed the reachability metric which was a good counterweight to prevent spamming on notifications because I don't if growth goes up the more notifications you send there's a correlation there but obviously there's a spam on the other side and so reachability was like determining who is turning off their settings uh which just a way more complicated metric than you would think so that's one big thing I did another big thing was built the first crossa growth dashboard for WhatsApp Instagram messenger and Facebook so you could look at all of the growth metrics in one chart and that had never been done before was the the engineer that integrated all that stuff the big thing was Facebook has this algorithm called nudges The Machine learning Al algorithm that determines which notifications to send to you I made that pipeline 90 it cost 90% less so it was 10 times more efficient after I optimized it with this thing called sorted merge bucket joins but those are the main things that I did in at my time at Facebook that I sold to Netflix that you're saying for successful job hopping you want to wrap those pieces up and be thinking about when I jump this is the story I'm going to tell about the thing that I did yeah because obviously if you have short tenure at places the very first thing they're going to think is this guy doesn't play well with others this guy is he's not a good fit there why is he going to be a good fit with us but you have to squash that very early in the interview process you have to squash the idea of this guy is a disloyal job Hopper because that's obviously something they're going to think when they look at the resume but if you can squash that and instead be like no this guy is actually extremely ambitious he wants to solve hard problems and he has solved hard problems and he's on a trajectory to help us solve hard problems that is a much better more I've even seen it in interviews where people were initially skeptical of me but after talking with me they're like okay this guy seems pretty good so let's talk about rvnv so I guess for the promotion to senior it was through the job hop Contender was a big part of it and your ability to sell yourself was a big part of it so then sounds like Netflix was good what made you want to jump to to Airbnb great question a couple things happened so like one of the things that happened with jender was he also believed in me too much cuz what ended up happening on my team at Netflix was I was on this team working on security threat detection but then there was a whole other team doing this thing called asset inventory just us managing all of the cloud assets and where they're at and who owns all that stuff and the engineer there who had been at Netflix for 10 years left the team there was this opening for that spot which was why Netflix is complicated back then especially complicated that spot was definitely a staff spot not a senior spot I'm like I'll take it let's go I'm hungry for opportunity and I'll take it and so I take that role I went from interfacing with just the detection team to interfacing with 11 other teams the amount of conversations that I needed to have dramatically skyrocketed I honestly wasn't ready for that and I leaned back into my behavior okay these people want this these people want that and I'm like okay I'm just going to answer all these people's questions even though I was just one guy and it was way too much work I got to solve all these problems because I was like holy crap this is crazy and I got a big raise though I got a huge raise from that because of that that jump into this new role Netflix recognized that so when they when I got in I was in like the upper 300s and then my next year at Netflix like they had me at 550 and because of this like change into this kind of more of a staff engineer archetype which was not ready for and then ultimately what ended up happening at Netflix was in 2019 they decided that data engineering and data science so I was still I was a software engineer on a data engineering team it's complicated okay but like I was still in the data engineering orc and so the data engineering they determined that data engineering was no longer like a necessary org and they wanted to collapse it into data science okay and so they like what they did was they straight up they like okay VP fired director fir fired and then jender fired they just cut the whole chain and then they're like okay now all you guys report to the data science people now and like when they did that when they did that like that stressed me out a lot it stressed me out way too much I it was stressed me out so much that I went on a mental health break I went on Mental Health break because I was like this is too much this is too much and then I went on Mental Health break for a month then I came back and then I realized I was like I wanted to work with your tender man like I don't know so he wasn't part of the data science or he was a data engineering leader oh was he fired he was fired yeah no they fired all the data engineering leaders oh they all got God and then we all started reporting to data science leaders instead and that was a big thing that I was like there was one last I had one last attempt that I wanted to do at Netflix because technically I also wasn't really in the data engineering org to begin with I was more in like the Cyber Security Org because I was working on asset inventory and tracking all like the security assets that was like literally what my job was and so the very last thing I tried was I was like tedo's gone I don't want to work in a data science org I did that at Facebook I did not like it I want to be in an engineering org right not an analytics org that's why I'm here that's why I that was my original reason of coming here and so the last thing I did was I applied to transition to the cyber security team and I was like Hey makes a lot of sense I'm like the only software engineer on this data engineering team so it doesn't even make sense that I'm on this team so I think it makes more sense that I'm on your guys' team and then they were like they didn't that transfer they didn't like the idea of that transfer and they were like no like you should stay in your current role and I was like all right Deuces see you later and that pissed me off a lot that pissed me off a lot because then I'm like okay there's what am I supposed to do here I'm just supposed to just shut up and write pipelines is that what I'm supposed to do in this situation when literally they just completely changed the org in a way that it no longer aligns with my career goals so ultimately I just quit I was like I'm done with nothing lined up I actually had a dream of traveling the world that's what I wanted to do I wanted to spend 2020 travel the world so I quit in early March 6th 2020 was my last day of Netflix I was like I'm going to travel the world the timing was absolutely atrocious then the world was like no you're not going to travel because Co happen and I was like wow okay but yeah I just was like I'm done I'm going to just not work at this company anymore just felt like I wanted to give so much to that company they were like we're going to give you nothing of what you want we'll pay you a lot but we're going to give you absolutely nothing else I'm like okay then there's the whole adage of like in your career you should be learning or earning or both I am still even today I'm All About Learning is still better than earning even now even where I'm at that's why I'm like entrepreneur now because I want to learn new things I want to attack new problems and solve new problems and it's that's why I got bored at Airbnb because I'm like I'm not learning sure I'm making great money but I'm not really learning so I want to do something else and and I think that's not why people work at Netflix though they're more motivated there to make a lot of money and retire early that's the main motivation for people there I actually think that people at meta are more learning motivated yeah for sure okay so yeah there was one thing that you said in your last story of what you were doing in Netflix at the end there y you said you got put into a staff role and you weren't ready for it yeah I think that is the thing that these big tech companies try to prevent when they don't promote someone because they don't have the behaviors but they have the impact mhm because you had the skills and everything but then you were put in there and it was just too much stuff you needed the staff behaviors to scale yourself and work through other people so I thought that was a pretty good example of I think when I heard the lagging promotion stuff I go why are you holding people back yeah but this is the exact meant to me prevent this situation right where if these people are like they have the impact for it but they don't have the behaviors like looking back on it at Netflix like the big thing for me was a couple things I think one was establishing better work boundaries super important one another one was like just like planning things out a little bit more and not it's one of those things that like I recognize now that's actually the part that is again it's the lesson I'm learning again as an entrepreneur it's the lesson I learned then and I'm learning again as you do still need to plan things out and be like okay this is going to happen later it doesn't have to happen today but it will happen at some point in the future right those things and I think another big one was just like selling a vision right selling like a technical vision of something that was in my head and and this is something content has helped me a lot with is like being able to take ideas that I have in my head that I'm very excited about but then actually being able to present them and and show them and sell other people on them I think that's one of the big behaviors that changes is that you do need to be able to sell you have to be able to sell like a vision or a future we need to be working on this not that and those are things that like in all the previous levels of engineering you don't have to worry about you just deliver on the work that you're supposed to deliver on and solve the hard problem but deciding on which problem to solve that was the other Behavior at Netflix that I was like I'm like whoa dude I'm like I don't know yeah yeah for sure okay going back to the story timeline yeah so now you left Netflix cuz there was reorgs chaos you don't have anything else lined up yep how do you start thinking about Airbnb oh yeah it really just came back to in December of 2020 when after I was ## Negotiating IC6 at Airbnb [39:49] like had played a lot of video games and I I don't know I just wasn't feeling very fulfilled I was really depressed and then my my girlfriend at the time was like what are you doing with your life what's going on and she was like very not happy with what I was doing and I was like fair and we ended up breaking up and I was like whoa this is okay now I'm like I got no job I got no girlfriend I'm like and I barely got the dog getting the breakup but okay we got the dog and that's just me and a dog right now I'm like I got to freaking support my dog at least with an income and then I was like I should interview I should like I should take another swing at the fences here and see what happens I also so that was also when I started making content was December 2020 was like that was because that was also something I said to all my co-workers at Netflix when I quit I was like you're gonna see me again you're gonna see me again I'm GNA be famous I promise I I I told them all that in like March of 2020 when I left because I was like I'm going to make content I'm going to be I even knew back then I was going to make content but I should have done it during the pandemic when everyone was on their phone because you could just blow up and then you could be like Ali Miller and have 1.5 million followers if you started in 2020 you got such an unfair advantage and Ali Miller she's like the number one AI influencer on LinkedIn but yeah I was just happy that I started in 2020 still and then that was the big things I did I started making content on LinkedIn and then I started applying I actually interviewed at more than just Airbnb I interviewed at meta I interviewed at Google and I interviewed at Airbnb when you interviewed was it uh data engineer data engineering roles it was a mix actually cuz I didn't know what I wanted cuz Airbnb was able to end up selling on a data engineering role but at Google I interviewed for software engineer and at Facebook I interviewed for software engineer and I actually got offers from all three companies but the problem was that the Google and Facebook roles were both senior and I was like and then every VI was like and I'm like okay and then it was just like I was like I can't just say no to an extra $100,000 because it was just like the Airbnb offer was just so much more money that it was like okay this is not even close do you remember what the numbers were yeah so for Facebook it was like 415 or something like that like it was pretty high like 400 and then Google's was a little bit like three when I got the offer from Google I was like why did I even interview with you guys you're going to pay me what Netflix paid me four years ago I don't know about that and then the one from airb came in out was like and I was like okay it's much more over $100,000 more and I was like okay freaking easy decision easy decision yeah no brainer yeah it made me a little bit sad cuz I was like it's not even really competing offers because those ones aren't even really comp competing with the other one and I was like it was an interesting of place to be but the reason why I was okay with it because Airbnb actually does data engineering very differently than uh a lot of other companies big things like for example at Airbnb I only coded in Scala right no Sequel and I guess not only Scala but like 95% Scala and 5% python but because it's all about they want really high quality pipelines that are integrated with their online systems like with for me it was pricing and availability their pric availability systems they wanted pipelines that emulated all of the behavior that those systems would create and that's what I worked on and I'm like this is not really even this is a good it actually felt very amazing at first because I was like this is exactly what I wanted at Netflix cuz I'm like it's the perfect blend of creating pipelines but also still having technical Integrations and optimization concerns that you have to also think about and dealing with online systems it was like this crazy like role that was in the middle that I really liked but yeah it was an interesting one for sure so Airbnb gives you staff that's a no-brainer and it makes it so that you're willing to go back in the data engineering software engineering okay sounds good the big question for me is how are you able to sell them on staff because you were senior if you just were to go for a staff interview there's some requirements of certain number of years of experience or those types of blocking things that you might not have control over so how do you get interview and great question CU that was actually something that I was really stunned by with airb because that interview they were actually interviewing me for one or the other they were like we might give you senior we might give you staff they were saying like based on how you interview and I was like because I actually got the offers from uh Facebook and Google first and then I got the Airbnb one and cuz I was like ah dude because when those two came in at senior I'm like like Airbnb don't do it don't do don't do me don't do me like this but then Airbnb comes in his staff and I'm like okay then that makes it very easy and you're totally right the role the staff role at least on the job description says 10 plus and at that point I had six and I'm like 10 plus and six that's that's there's a gap there there like a significant Gap I think it comes back to just that impact story and being able to talk about what I did at Netflix and like the being like I interfaced with these like 11 teams and we solved all these crazy security problems right being able to just talk about all that stuff that is uh what I think really put airb be over the edge because one of the things that I feel very grateful from Netflix that I know impressed people people at Airbnb was they have this kind of culture of this feedback culture right the radical cander of just give feedback immediately right it's like almost if you come from a a Kinder company or a more chill company when you come into Netflix and then you start getting this immediate feedback you're like everyone here's a dick everyone here's like why is everyone here so mean but then after a while you're like wait a minute no everyone here really wants me to grow that's what it's actually about and I think that was what I was able to learn from and get that but I was definitely really nervous about the role at Airbnb because I was like am I just walking right back into what I just left at Netflix right am I walking right back into something that it was going to be just a replication of what I was doing before for the senior and the staff was the recruiter up front where they're saying Hey FYI you're either going to be senior staff good luck on the interviews yeah they they actually did say that and I was annoyed by that a little bit because I just felt I'm like I guess because I knew that at that moment if it was just a senior interview I wasn't going to take it because was there something on your end that you did to advocate for staff oh yeah great question so I advocated for staff because in in that interview I was like hey I'm interviewing at these other companies and when I was talking with the the Airbnb recruiter I was like hey I'm interviewing at Facebook and at Google right now as well and those companies like if and I even told him I'm like if I get an interview from all three of you and they all come in at senior I'm not picking Airbnb you said that to yeah right so were they gonna do senior yeah I think so I I think that was well the interview they said that's why we leaned into that kind of Middle Ground of we'll just do the interview and if you interview well enough because I wanted it to be like an open-mindedness at least of give this guy a chance but yeah because otherwise because everything being equal I probably would have gone back to Facebook if it was like senior across the board I probably would have gone back to Facebook got it like but since it was not I was like and did you try to get staff interviews at Google and Facebook too yeah I did try to get those they did not give me that straight out at the front they said senior only but Airbnb they said oh probably senior you said I'm not going to take it unless staff's an option and then they said okay maybe staff and then you had the opportunity and you did well on the interviews yeah okay yeah it was wild and I love that that's why it's so important to have more than one company that you're interviewing for that you're excited about because then that puts you in this position where you can have conversations where hey this is what I need from this company and because otherwise I'm gone I'm just going to go somewhere else and how many years of experience did you have at that point six yeah it was six actually I had a viral post on LinkedIn about this where the Airbnb rooll said I needed 10 and I applied and it was six and I got it and then my whole point on that post was like apply for jobs that you don't think you're ready for yeah yeah yeah so your ability to negotiate and sell is what got you that that stuff okay definitely and actually like after being in that role for a little bit I was ready for it because you want to know what I realized I realized more about the Netflix role that was more problematic than I thought it was it was that I changed ladders right I went from data engineer to software engineer but then I went up that ladder to staff and so in some ways like I was just not ready to do software engineering at that staff level because honestly I'd been doing it like professionally one year and the only reason that I was able to like even not just get absolutely crushed was because I'd been spending all my weekends doing it and like doing side projects and and hustling on the side but if you look at the actual professional experience it was the combination of those two things that I think was like brand new like job role but also higher job title and those two things together was like burnout risk whereas like when I got in at Airbnb it was like staff data engineer I'm like okay I feel pretty good about this it was like more the leadership was there and I was like okay I needed to grow in there a little bit but it it was more manageable it didn't feel like it wasn't like oh my God I have so much to learn it was like okay there's things I need to learn but I know what they are and this is going to be doable that was what I want to ask you is now because you went into the staff role some might wonder would you underperform in that role you're saying that you performed fine because it was going back to data engineering which you had a lot more confidence in is that right yeah and that because I think at Netflix it was the combination of getting put into this position of high-risk position of and like leadership ship position when I wasn't ready for it but then it was the combination of that and that I transitioned to software engineering like less than a year before and so those two things together were I think where there was a gap right where it's you only want to change like one variable at a time and then so when I got in at Airbnb and I was nervous about it for sure super nervous because I was like I don't want to just run myself right back into the ground being in a position where I'm like I am not ready for this but it was ended up being way more chill for sure yeah and then your first year at Airbnb how was the performance yeah I got exceeds my first half at Airbnb and it was a good one like I think that first year I really started to get the I just up leveled a lot of the pricing pipelines and then I built a lot of designs it was a lot higher level kind of stuff and then they also wanted me to they said I was close with greatly because the problem was architecture stuff right they really wanted me to be working on things that were companywide and I just wanted to work on Marketplace they wanted me to design the best practices of how to take data from the data Lake and put it back in the production systems because everyone has taking data from production putting it in the lake that's going the other way is not as like straightforward and they wanted me to come up with all those and I just had no desire to do that and then and that's when I realized that was a moment there I had a Moment of clarity I remember it was in September of 2021 when I was like wait a minute do I even want to get promoted am I good where I'm at right now do I not even care cuz I don't know I just feel like I'm someone who like I want to do everything that is asked of me and I want to always be showing that next level growth that's like a part of my life and when I didn't want to do that I literally was like I don't want to do this work I don't want to do it and I I told my manager I'm not going to do this work and they're like okay that they even told that if you don't want to do that work that's the work that would get you promoted that's the work that's going to get you to the next level but I just don't care it's too many meetings I just did not like the fact that it was just so many meetings so did your cuz you said earlier your vision for your career was as principal engineer by age did that change then cuz cuz they were handing you they were handing me the path right up for sure that's exactly what they were doing and I think it was when I recognized this was also right when I was getting traction on LinkedIn at the same time I was like that's I just hit 50k on LinkedIn or something like that I was like wait a minute I actually care about other things now I don't just care about my job I care about this other stuff as well and so I told my manager I'm like it's fine I will just work my job and that was like my goal was like wanted to just get Airbnb to more of a rest invest kind of situation where I'm just doing the absolute bare minimum what I wanted to do throughout your story at Facebook and at Netflix you had a really strong ## Building internal brand when job hopping [52:09] internal brand with your manager and so I think opportunities came to you he kept giving you stuff get you to go higher and higher yeah it sounds like a Airbnb even without that manager's trust people again were giving you opportunity so what did you do at Airbnb to go from zero internal brand to a point where they're saying here's senior staff please help us oh oh that's a great one this is one of the things that I try to do every time I get a new job is I want to do something in three months where people are like damn they're like okay this guy's crazy and the thing that I did in in three months at Airbnb was so they have this pipeline called the pricing and availability pipeline that computes all the prices and availability every day and it was like a mess it was like one of the most like deaddy freaking pipelines I have ever seen they had this new notion called the paved road which is the way you're supposed to build a pipeline that is compatible with the platform high quality and all they had given me that to move that pipeline onto the road but they said that was something finished by the end of the year I finished it in the first quarter instead of four quarters and they were like okay this guy clearly knows how to make things a lot better and because that made it so pipeline was no longer delayed pipeline just worked and everything was just smooth and pretty much Flawless going forward and that was the start of that first that's the first like trigger in like someone's brain because they're like first off they're like this guy didn't just ramp up really quickly he ramped up and landed a big impact quickly those two things together are are really important where I want to show them that I don't really care that much about risk right that like I manage risk really I know that this pipeline is very important for the whole company it's a price is a very important part of Airbnb and so I was like we can figure this out and we're going to build this out and I'm just going to be very careful and follow all the best practices and let's get this done I try to do that I I try to find those points in systems where people know that things could be a lot better but they don't want to touch it because it's too risky or too complex or too much of a pain in the ass it's usually one of those three and that that that's why people just let it be bad or let it be suboptimal and there's I know I have a gift for finding those points of like where it's okay I can this problem but I don't know if this is the right one to solve but I'll do it and I want to land an impact early that's the big thing to start building that brand and did you know that work would have the impact before you did it or was that kind of handed to you or so it was handed to me obviously it's handed to you when you if if you're three months into a job like everything is handed to you at that point right it takes at least six months before you can build your own internal kind of compass of the company where you sit especially in these big companies that like have so any moving parts that's the only way to do it but in this case it was like it was something that was handed to me but I think it's an interesting kind of trade-off right and the goal there is just to build that brand when you're starting a new job people don't trust you they honestly don't trust you some people might actually distrust you I know that there were some senior engineers at Airbnb who actually didn't like me because I got hired in that staff because they were like they've been gunning for staff and like that staff promo from senior to staff is just unnecessarily ridiculous at most companies right and then they they thought it was just handed to me cuz I got hired in there and they're like oh why is this external hire getting this one I've been grinding for 4 years trying to get this promo yeah that shows to the value of interviewing because you did something that very impressive too you you did it and you got this offer with like less than six months of work whereas these other people they go through all the hoops and things and yeah still they're having troubles I guess it shows the value of interview it's similar to a couple things I think a couple other pieces of that are like you know how when like startup companies are Venture Capital pre-revenue companies actually get more generous offers because it's the maybe right it's like where could this go but then it's like when you have a track record the inertia that you have built from your own track record it's hard to overcome even if it's great still can be hard because they're going to always be like we hired you at this level and then you have to fight it upwards that's why yeah interviewing is wild yeah I think cuz there's more variance in the interview process There's an opportunity for you to step you get that stepwise right it's not an angle change it's a step change yeah that's huge okay so that kind of does the whole story of ic3 to ic6 and what you did two halves at Facebook you did about two halves at at Netflix you had a break for roughly a year so you basically went from Junior to staff in three three four years yeah that's insane okay so I think a few questions wrap up the interview yeah one of the most common ones that I get is how much did you work it sounds like you're ## Reflection & learnings [56:55] working about 60 hours hours especially 60 hours a week at Facebook and Netflix what about Airbnb was that Airbnb was a lot better in 2021 like 40 maybe a little bit more like that was one of the things that blew my mind about getting the exceeds yeah because I was like I'm not even what I was like I I I actually thought that my initial read on that was like wait a minute you can get exceeds and just work a normal amount of hours that was something that I didn't didn't even think was possible I thought I was going to get Meats I thought I was going to get meats and I'm like great I'm I'd be happy with Meats I'm fine just don't fire me I've definitely met people who are afraid of the staff promotion because they think that it locks them into a lot greater than 40 hours a week this is proof that in many CA or at least in this one case you don't need to work more than 40 hours a week and you can meet expectations it's more about shifting your behavior right it's about shifting from you really need to be able to start identifying High leverage opportunities right and that's not necessarily something that is grindy right that's just something that like you need to learn how to do and I think that it can be grindy for some people in staff and I think that's why some people like they do feel like they need to like work more but also sometimes like those opportunities are just not there too It's Tricky yeah definitely I think one of the things that might be interesting to go over is there something you think's unique to your personality that kind of helped you throughout yeah that's a good one I think a couple things there like the biggest one for me is just my tenacious ability to just keep learning and and I'm willing to put in the work to do it cuz even when I was doing 60 hours a week at Facebook I also founded a startup during that time and then Saturday and Sunday at the same time I was also working on a startup then because I wanted to learn JavaScript and I wanted to get better at full stack development I wanted to learn how to do all stuff which has been critical for My Success this year as an entrepreneur because now I have this platform that's all JavaScript based and I'm like I'm so happy that I did that even though back then I was like this is my whole life I'm just sitting in front of a computer and oh my God this is so crazy I think that's one thing I think another angle that I think is important for me is that I'm a positive person I think that another thing that's very important is being excited to work like showing up to work and being like I'm excited to be here I'm happy to be here is an underrated trait because the thing is if you are showing enthusiasm and excitement it's contagious it makes other people like their jobs more and if they like their jobs if they like their jobs more because of you they like you and if they like you they're more likely to give you opportunity and that helps a lot I know that's my friend nikot she's doing crazy good at meta and I think that like for her that's a big part of it too is just like being able to get people to like you and trust you and build up especially as you get into leadership and manager I feel like it's like a manager's entire job is that right is is is to get you to like your job and so I think that's going to be the other big one I think there's one other angle that I think is for me I don't know if being positive is unique about me but I think the third angle that I think for me is that I am not willing to put up with [ __ ] like when I think something is unfair I'm willing to change my life than just deal with it which I think is a double-edged sword I think I don't think that it's necessarily always a good thing I think that there could have been I think I could have done like a similar career trajectory as you if I would have just stayed at meta and found another manager who was better and pushed that way and probably would have been like less chaotic for me like in terms of all these new companies all these health insurance plans all these 401ks you know how many 401ks I had to get because of all this like it's had to merge all of them it's pain in the ass that's still the same thing though cuz even at meta you'd have to not be satisfied with your current one and be willing to switch teams which is yeah still taking a risk being okay with risk is a very important part of this journey for sure yeah and I think that first trait is a large part of why your first manager even trusted you so much if you have someone on your team that's willing to put in those insane hours or have that impact yeah the manager is going to keep trusting you with more if if you can show your manager that you're going to stick with a problem until it's solved yeah yeah then they're like okay yeah here's more work here's more important work yeah cool and then last thing is if you were to start all over again as ic3 knowing what you know today MH what's one thing that you change ooh that's a good one I think that there's a couple angles there one is being like more open to more perspectives because I feel like my first couple years in big Tech I was just very focused on I need to just get my tech skills up very high just become like the most technical person ever and now recognizing that that really only matters to get to senior engineer for the most part like after that like technical skills do help a little bit but it's more marginal after senior engineer you need other skills to get past that and feel like I didn't really start to develop a lot of those soft skills until I was at Netflix and things were on fire and that's when I was like okay time to learn the soft skills right when I need them like when I desperately need them and I think had I spent a little bit more time at Facebook focusing on those things developing the soft skills in lower risk situ so that like failure doesn't feel so crazy that is I think something that would have helped me a lot have a better work life balance and probably grow faster in my career I think that is a big one that I definitely would have changed I think another one I would have changed that is important is don't eat dinner at work don't do it just don't eat dinner at work it's a scam dude it's a scam because they offer it because they get an Roi right that's the only reason and Facebook and Google all these companies they do not offer you dinner because they're just beautiful amazing great companies the only reason it's there is to keep you at the office longer and to get you working more live your life take those hours right because I think that was another thing because I didn't really get into fitness until 2018 like my first year at Netflix and I feel like had I taken those hours back and dedicated them to the gym or dedicated them to other areas of my life that would have been another way that things could have been so given your super fast career growth are you saying that you wish you worked less though and was it worth it or the career growth I think is worth it because it's another way to go about doing your life my vision now of my life is more of a vision of balance and a a vision of tranquility and peace I'm trying to manifest that in my life now I wouldn't want to do it again now right I wouldn't want to go back and do what I did from 22 to 25 do those three years again no I wouldn't want to do it again but do I regret it no I think that it was what I needed at the time to feel powerful it's what I needed at the time to grow into the person I'm supposed to be but with that being said your health matters a lot and I think that's an angle that people forget about when they're like do TC chasing is that okay but it's okay say you make $20 million or whatever working in big Tech but you stressed out the whole time and you get cancer and you die when you're 50 it's that a good life you got to be thinking about those other angles right health wealth happiness they all matter and at different points in your life they matter different amounts that's why looking at it now it's different but I think that it's a strategy so it's if you want that's definitely a way to go if you want to go really and honestly I think as especially young men who are seeking purpose working really hard is a great option it's actually a really great option because it makes you useful it makes you useful because like when you're a teenager you're not really useful and you got to learn and grow and build something that makes you useful for society and that is I think it gave me a sense of purpose and that's great but could I have gotten that sense of purpose without grinding so hard and having so many like sleepless nights and so many like nights where I felt like I was in over my head and a couple panic attacks you there's a lot of other kind of behind the scenes things there that weren't really talked about like growing the career that like I think are important that things that like aren't discussed as much so if you could go back and talk to ic3 Zack yeah you'd say stop being one-dimensional but still keep working hard at at work but make sure you take care of your health and enjoy the ride more enjoy the ride more and not get laser focused on that and Laser focused on I must get promoted it's everything will come to you in time right if you put in the hours every day and you're showing up every day you'll get what you want the universe gives you exactly what you want if you're willing to put in the work and pay the price thanks so much for your time Zach really appreciate you coming on the podcast if you made it this far thanks for listening I am going to start posting these career story podcasts since I think it's helpful to to learn from others' experience when I was growing the staff I had a lot of help from mentors who shared this kind of information with me in one-on-one conversation so I'm hoping this podcast can make that information more accessible when I asked to interview Zach I wasn't fully prepared for the video side of things we just recorded this with our smartphones it's not the best but it serves as a good starting point uh for us to improve from so yeah we were literally crammed right behind me in my tiny room in SF but yeah it was fun and if you have any feedback for me on how to make this podcast more helpful I'd love to hear it in the comments I'll read every comment that I get here and yeah thanks for listening once again appreciate it