Navigating Career Choices: Startup vs. Big Tech

Rahul Pandey (@rpandey1234) grew to Staff at Meta through a few interesting legs of his career:

• Stanford to Startup - He joined a startup that one of his professors was starting right out of college. This startup was acquired within a year by Pinterest.

• Junior to Mid-level @ Pinterest - His promotion was rejected twice. He appealed the second rejection and got the promotion.

• Senior to Staff @ Meta - He interviewed for Senior at Meta and got a promotion through job hopping. From there, he worked towards his Staff promotion and got it.

After getting to Staff at Meta, he started his own YCombinator-funded startup, Taro. In our conversation we cover:

• What got him promoted to Staff at Meta

• Joining startups and “two-way doors”

• How his promotion was rejected twice and he appealed successfully

• When job hopping is good and when it is bad

• What real networking looks like

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Where to find Rahul:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpandey1234/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RahulPandeyrkp

• Twitter: https://x.com/rpandey1234

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rpandey1234/

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/

• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/

• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman

• Instagram: instagram.com/ryanlpeterman

In this episode, we cover:

00:00 – Intro

1:12 – Stanford to Startup

12:25 – Jr to Mid-level at Pinterest

30:20 – Senior to Staff at Meta

45:12 – Management (TLM) at Meta

53:40 – Leaving Meta to create a startup

1:05:32 – Career reflections