Transitioning to Data Engineering: A Journey to Silicon Valley

Zach Wilson is an engineer who grew to Staff (IC6) at Airbnb by age 26. He worked at Meta, Netflix, Airbnb and more recently has started his own company. In our conversation, we discuss:

• His promotion from Junior (IC3) to Mid-level (IC4) at Meta

• What blocked his promotion to Senior (IC5) at Meta

• Job hopping to Senior at Netflix instead

• Burning out at Netflix when given Staff scope

• Negotiating Staff at Airbnb

• Regrets & learnings

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Where to find Zach Wilson:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/eczachly/

• X: https://x.com/EcZachly

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

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

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

• Newsletter: https://blog.dataengineer.io/

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

In this episode, we cover:

00:27 Introducing Zach Wilson

03:14 Landing a Job at Facebook

06:33 Choosing the Right Team at Facebook

07:28 IC3 to IC4 at Meta

13:54 Trying for IC5 at Meta

23:49 Getting hired as an IC5 at Netflix

39:49 Negotiating IC6 at Airbnb

52:09 Building internal brand when job hopping

56:55 Reflection & learnings

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