@TheEternalVortex42

As a fellow coding machine (still) at Meta (hi Novati!) I'm really happy to see this role get more prominence. Too much of the staff+ discussion online is focused around "tech lead"-style work, but in my experience there is usually too much of it and not enough senior eng doing execution. It just doesn't work well if you have only juniors actually writing the code, I often am able to identify bigger-picture issues that I would miss if I didn't do that.

@StingSting844

Man this podcast is the only one which offers a lot of insights into how these faang companies work and deliver. One thing I find common is that they all have superb infrastructure for development and coders can move at an incredibly high pace

@NovaAsterix8

Michael has been coding like crazy since he was...12? As his younger brother, I couldn't be more proud of him. He also made my own coding assignments super easy :D

@MrSherlockholmes1001

Amazing interview, really interesting topic 🔥

It'd be also super interesting to know how Michael managed his focus as he grew in the org (seems it can be quite difficult to be a code machine while having to show up at 23 meetings this week), how he identified which things to tackle/refactor/clean up (do you just go looking, "stumble" upon them by accident, etc) and how he leverages his tools (brief mention of vim at the end there, as expected)for this insane productivity.

Thanks so much for having him as a guest.

@ShaheenGhiassy

23:43 I’m an E7 who just joined Meta 4 months ago. To answer the question being discussed, it is a lot harder to drive impact as an outsider, without a network, but the difficulty also speaks to why you were probably hired as an E7+ in the first place. Dropping into unknown orgs and being seen as a leader is par for the course.

@MindOFAlfie

Really insightful interview. Enjoyed this one a lot

@nosh3019

great interview! thank you for bringing in Michael and all the great questions and answers! 😍

@cnasir3475

Rarely searched for podcast before this one.

@olo90

This was so entertaining - Michael really has the funniest analogies

@atmamont

I’d like to request an interview with his manager now.

@frydegz

From what I understand, Meta has a very test-heavy culture these days - most PRs need tests from what I hear. A lot of code means a lot of tests - I was wondering how Michael either removes or gets through the minutia of making them.

Loved the anecdote about that Risk game.

@bushidocodes

It's interesting how much this archetype reflects the "Move Fast and Break Things" culture. I've worked at a number of places where this archetype would be called "Tactical Tornado" and treated as an antipattern. Coincidentally, those sorts of places have a very extreme safety focus and lock down portions of the codebase with extreme forms of codeowners similar to how the Linux project is run. The slur I've heard against that codeowners mindset is "Cookie Licker" meaning that someone can licked the cookie to make sure no one else can touch the portion of the codebase. Crosscutting changes end up like UN or EU negotiations of a bazillion stakeholders. 

I guess the culture really does depend on what sort of systems you're building. A SaaS mindset likely isn't well suited for kernel code.

@sashangovender5327

Be interesting to learn how he managed to avoid treading on other peoples code. Generally if you want to be a code machine. You have to obliterate other peoples opinions and subtle nuances that might detract from how you perceive a problem and the shape of solution.

@MAMware

is this an add for meta? im about to finish and it was all flowers to meta

@jbonomo

Love the podcasts youve been doing. One comment stood out that really bother me towards end of the conversation 1:08:54 . How the interview doesn't match the job and you cant fight it. Interviews that lack testing for skills needed in the job are bad interviews. In an extreme example, I wouldn't ask someone who to perform open heart surgery if they were interviewing for a janitor job. This should apply to coding jobs as well, interview for skills required for the job and understand growth potential of the candidate.

@hellowill

I've been the top PR reviewer and committer at 2 companies now... unfortunately outside big tech it is not rewarded. They basically force you into leadership/management.

@jOeCHEM

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 it's Pragmatic Podcast day 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

@Rdffuguihug

By the looks of it, he had no option but to become great.

@dudeman99999

This man is a legend.

@yudhiesh1997

Michael where there instances where you wanted to make a change to a project but faced significant amount of pushback on the changes you wanted to make? How did you handle the people side of trying to push code out?