How To Be An Ace Big-Tech Software Developer - w/ Hemant
In this episode, featured not-expert is Hemant Pandey. Hemant is a Sr software engineer at Meta and has extensive experience as a SWE in companies like Salesforce, SAP, Tesla and Amazon.
We go over a day in the life at Meta, Hemant’s career journey that saw him make timely jumps to bigger and better opportunities, tech stacks used at big tech, how to break into software development as a beginner, qualities of 10x engineers and many other fascinating topics. We also discuss what current students in BTech and/or Masters degrees can do to find employment (yes, simply solving LeetCode problems is not enough) and the fascinating work Hemant does with teen regulatory aspects at Meta.
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Resources:
Sr Engineer Resources - https://github.com/hemantpandey17/top-resources-to-be-a-senior-engineer Hemant - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hemant-pandey/
Timestamps:
(00:00) Background + Intro (02:26) Day in the life as a Meta SWE (05:12) Transition from engineer to senior engineer (09:42) Educational background and journey to Meta (18:53) Tech stacks used at top companies (22:53) Tech/behavioral interviews and how to LeetCode? (26:36) Importance of "clear communication" in interviews (28:57) Breaking into SDE as a beginner (Masters or Bachelors) (33:04) Qualities of 10x engineers (38:47) Starting a tech newsletter (45:29) Impact of generative AI and how Meta uses it (51:47) Regulating Gen-Z users on Meta products (55:36) On being an Indian SWE in the valley (56:54) Advice for folks in the current market (59:01) Outro + Gratitude
