Hidden Tiger asked
answered 3h ago
Hi Philip, first, thanks for sharing your wisdom on your here, and on your podcast appearances and substack articles. I learned a lot from them.
I'm curious how you reason about when to stay in a role. For context, I joined Meta 2 years ago as an M1, and had pretty good success growing my team and launching a new 0-1 that was taking off. I was getting EE ratings, trending GE for this half (but then took parental so N/A) and getting funding for 6 new headcount (all e6+7).
Then the great flattening hits, and suddenly I'm an IC6 again.
I'm actually not too worried about delivering as IC6, but I can't help feel a bit dejected. Like all the progress I made towards my goal (eng dir, one day), over 2 years of work, went out the window.
My leadership (skip) is trying to reassure me that isn't the case, that I'll get to E7 soon, etc etc... but it feels hard to accept, and to trust. Even if I get it, is it likely I can convert to M2 later in this new flattened world? What does M2 even mean when M2 and M1 are now basically peers (16 reports)?
I also have a strong offer to go be an EM elsewhere (outside of meta). I really like the people and the technology here, but I can't help feeling that the timing or team fit maybe just isn't right for my long term goal.
What would you do? Stay? Leave? Aim to boomerang? I'd appreciate any thoughts. Thanks.
Philip's answer
Deciding what to do here depends a lot on the outcome you want. For instance:
Is your goal to become a director at Meta? A director at any major company? A director anywhere?
Why is being a director the goal? Would you feel just as good as an IC8, compensated the same? What if you could get paid more being an M1/M2 elsewhere?
Although I've had several Meta coworkers go from IC8 straight into a directorship, those situations tended to happen only in cases when they had equivalent management scope in a prior job. So it feels not impossible, but unlikely, that you'd go IC6 → IC7 → D1.
Given that's the case, a big question is how you continue to learn and grow your ability to manage larger teams and/or more senior people. You mentioned an offer with a different company; what are your options for switching within Meta itself? Sometimes when switching within an existing company, you have the advantage of already having positive social capital as well as understanding how best to work within a culture. If you had an opportunity to manage a set of people as an M1 elsewhere in Meta, you'd likely start with an advantage over switching elsewhere. (This is said without knowing more context around your other offer).
From the way you describe it, I don't myself automatically think of what's happened to you as "all the progress... over 2 years of work, went out the window." You had two years' of experiences learning how to be a great M1. That's definitely progress.
Which brings me to a final point: remember that your level is a delayed external metric of your internal capabilities, if everything's working correctly. What's most important is growing those internal capabilities. Going from M1 → M2 isn't half as important as learning the skills to act at an M2 scope. Benjamin Graham (the investor) used to say, "In the short run, the market is a voting machine. In the long run, it's a weighing machine." Optimize for your intrinsic value, your ability to do larger scope work and manage larger scope teams. Sometimes, that'll mean being thrown into the deep end of managing something you're barely competent at in order to learn the skills before drowning. At other times, it's about finding opportunities to hone those skills so that when the right role arises, you're the obvious choice for the job.
Look for opportunities to do the latter, whether that's inside Meta or elsewhere. Always work with and for the best people you can, and focus on emulating and practicing the skills which will make you a slam-dunk candidate for the job you want. Don't let external measurements and metrics drive that decision.