From IC6 to Principal Engineer at Instagram: Key Strategies and Insights
This article summarizes the journey of Jake Bullum, a principal engineer (IC8) at Instagram, who achieved two promotions from staff engineer. He shares insights into his career progression, work-life balance, and effective strategies for impactful engineering.
Early Career and Team Transitions
Jake joined Meta (formerly Facebook) as an IC6 in the Facebook Groups team during a period of rapid growth. He experienced a slow onboarding process due to the onset of COVID-19 and the then-upcoming election, leaving him to work independently on various projects. Subsequently, he transitioned to Instagram Web as an IC6, drawn by the opportunity to work on user interfaces and utilize React. Despite intending to focus on front-end development, he was consistently pulled into front-end infrastructure and then backend infrastructure roles throughout his career.
Embracing Backend Infrastructure and Impact
Jake's shift towards backend infrastructure stemmed from his desire to maximize impact. He recognized that mobile traffic was surpassing web, making the backend a more critical area. This led him to prioritize projects where he could contribute most significantly, even if it meant moving away from his initial preference for front-end development.
-
He chose projects based on where he could make the biggest difference.
-
This often led him to backend roles with broader impact.
From IC6 to IC7: Leading Teams and Driving Results
At Instagram Web, Jake's skills were quickly recognized, and he was offered the opportunity to lead multiple teams as an IC7. He attributes this to his prior experience leading teams and his proactive communication about his career aspirations.
-
He expressed his eagerness for IC7 early on.
-
His managers recognized his skills and the team's need for a leader.
The IC7 role, in his view, involves leading multiple teams or a broader area, while IC8 represents a further expansion of impact and responsibility, often tied to the importance of the problem being addressed. This advancement depends on the importance of the problem solved, like improving backend frameworks impacting thousands of engineers.
Archetypes of High-Impact Engineers
Jake describes different archetypes of engineers who achieve significant impact, ranging from those who lead through teams to specialists who make targeted code changes with substantial business results. He emphasizes that his approach is to do whatever is needed to complete a project and utilizes his strengths in communication and coordination.
-
Leaders: Coordinate and motivate teams.
-
Specialists: Deeply focused on specific areas, like compilers.
He sees his role as a "force multiplier," enabling those around him to succeed. While acknowledging potential overlaps with management, he prefers remaining in an individual contributor role to maintain the ability to directly contribute code.
Maintaining Work-Life Balance as an IC8
Despite the demands of an IC8 role, Jake maintains a reasonable work-life balance by implementing systems to shield his time. This involves:
-
Scheduling focus blocks.
-
Avoiding meetings in the mornings.
-
Limiting meetings on Wednesdays and Fridays.
-
Batching one-on-ones on Monday afternoons.
During periods of intense coding, he reduces meeting attendance, trusting that project momentum and team alignment will sustain progress. He's been praised for running massive projects without central meetings, favoring ad hoc communication within smaller workstreams.
Diff Reviews and Risk Management
Jake prioritizes diff reviews, recognizing that pending reviews can block other engineers. His approach to diff reviews is based on risk assessment: less critical code receives a high-level review, while core systems undergo thorough scrutiny.
-
Low-risk diffs: Quick approval to maintain velocity.
-
High-risk diffs: Detailed review to ensure quality.
He accepts diffs with comments about potential issues, trusting that the engineers will address them appropriately. This controversial approach prioritizes speed while assuming trust and responsibility within the team. He also believes in moving quickly with rollouts, increasing traffic at a higher rate if he is not getting any negative signal.
Leveraging AI and Essential Tech Lead Skills
Jake embraces AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance productivity. He emphasizes that tech leads are responsible for project completion, often requiring them to facilitate others' contributions. A common mistake is losing sight of the project's overarching goals. He believes that even high-level engineers should contribute code regularly to stay connected with the toolchain.
Key Takeaways and Advice
Jake emphasizes the importance of practice in determining what is impactful and encourages others to focus on addressing what others are not willing to do. To junior engineers, he advises young engineers to go where you are valued, finding environments that appreciate and leverage their strengths. He also advises to be nice, simple and have fun in the workplace. His note-taking system in VS Code is an extension of his brain and he uses it to record what is going on at any moment. He says it is ok if you break production sometimes, as long as you learn from it and prevent it from happening to frequently.
{#