Big Tech vs Big Tech
Battle of the M's, what's it like working at Microsoft UK vs Meta US?
Hello friends!
Today I’m joined by Hemant Pandey, a Senior Software Engineer at Meta. Hemant has had an impressive career journey so far, working at Big Corporations such as Meta, Salesforce, Tesla and Amazon.
We bring you a collaborative article where we discuss the challenges and subtle differences of our journeys into being a Senior Software Engineer in both Meta, US and in Microsoft, UK.
We’ve got a couple of questions lined up for you that have been commonly asked by our network, we hope you enjoy!
Firstly, Hemant, can you tell us about yourself?
Hi folks, I am Hemant Pandey. I am working as Senior SWE at Meta since last 2.5 years. I have been in tech since last 6 years and worked at Tesla, SAP and Salesforce before. I did my Master’s in CS from Stony Brook University and before that I was in New Delhi, India where I did my schooling and undergrad.
I lift weights, play tennis, watch all movies, create content on LinkedIN and now running a career growth newsletter The Hustling Engineer.
💀 Oh, you’ve all twisted my arm, here’s a bit about me…
Hello everyone, I’m Jade Wilson. I am a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, for the past few months. I have been in tech for the past 9 years and have worked from a variety of different size companies and roles, with the last role being a lead engineer at a start up. I’ve lived in the UK for all my life and I got my undergrad degree at the University of Leeds (let me know if you went there too!)
I love all things fine dining, my partner and I love going to new restaurants and trying out different foods, so if you have any good recommendations, do let me know!
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to senior at your current company?
Hemant: I joined Meta directly as a senior. I have only been promoted once in my career. That was at Salesforce where I went from MTS → SMTS (think of it as like SDE1 → SDE2). I was able to clear Meta interviews for E5 and joined directly as a senior. I had some experience leading medium complexity projects at Salesforce but I feel I still grew majority of senior SWE traits at Meta.
Jade: It was a bit of an odd one for me, I had come from a company where I was a lead engineer for a team of 8 engineers, and with line management responsibilities of some too… Going from that to a regular software engineer role wasn’t always easy because you go from having a lot of different responsibilities to not as many. I believe that one of the reasons I got senior was because I continue to do the exact same practices and standards that I did when I used to be a lead, which was taking ownership and accountability of the work that I produced.
Did you face any challenges on the way?
Hemant: I think I faced biggest challenge when I joined Meta. During my first half, I faced severe imposter syndrome and was also ramping onto this new culture. I worked 60 hour work weeks during my first half to prove myself. After that, I realized the power of protecting your time and how I can be more impactful by ruthlessly prioritizing impactful tasks over others.
Jade: I think for me it was just getting over that initial hurdle of what the outside thought of my taking, what could be perceived as a step down. Don’t get me wrong, I was more than happy to because I wanted so badly to work for Microsoft and I did get a really good deal, but it was still hard for me as someone who had worked hard to get to that lead role to go back to a role where I had much less responsibilities and role scope. When you work at a start-up, you have to be in charge of a lot of different things and if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done… To go from that to having a lot of freedom within your role is a big adjustment.
How does where you work now differ to places you’ve worked before?
Hemant: Meta is very different from other places I worked at. The company moves fast and there is just more energy I feel around in comparison to previous places I work at. The performance evaluation here is more organized than other companies which is both good and bad. I cannot think of a better place if you are a product engineer since you get to develop products which is literally used by billions everyday.
I’ve launched multiple products and features now at Meta and it gave me a new perspective that how PMs, TPMs, DE, DS, Legal, Policy and other roles work as a team and play critical role in launching products to customers.
Jade: There is a lot of freedom where I work now. In places I’ve worked before, it’s always been rush, rush, rush. To the point you sometimes didn’t even get to properly think about the products and software you are creating.
In the team I work now it’s great we have the time to think through our solution and come up with the best solution. When we do proof of concepts, we are very clear that they are proof of concepts and should not be used as production code.
The other massive difference is that licensing isn’t so much of an issue, we get a lot of tools included as part of working here and it just generally makes me so much more productive as an engineer. I LOVE COPILOT.
What are the biggest benefits of working at such a large company?
Hemant: Better pay, free food and lots of perks. Also, I really like the hybrid setup where I go to office 3 times a week. I haven’t worked at a startup yet but I feel you have a lot more flexibility in big tech. Internal tooling is pretty great and you have enough internal resources to upskill and move to different teams based on your interest and goals.
Jade: I think the biggest benefit really is that work like balance that you get, it is really a case of working 9-5, and you’re not expected to work weekends or on-call. I had to do that a lot in my old company and it was a pain.
The other big benefit is just the people you meet, they invest a lot into training on making things inclusive and fair and everyone you approach embodies that. I love
What are the drawbacks of working at such a large company?
Hemant: Sometimes things can get blocked or slowed down due to a lot of factors outside of your control (legal, privacy etc).
Also, people perceive you by the employer you work at, so any bad news on company can directly or indirectly affect you.
Jade: It can be really hard sometimes to find the advice you need on how to do things. For example, in small companies it’s really common to know who the people in HR and finance are… In such a big company, everything is done through a ticketing system and so if you have an issue with something such as your payslip or with understanding how to access something, it’s not always an instant thing.
In my old companies I would just drop them a message or catch them at their desk, you can’t really do that in a big company.
How much time do you spend coding vs meetings?
Hemant: Over last 6 months, 14-15 hrs is my average meeting hours per week i.e. ~3 hrs of meeting per day. These includes team meetings, brainstorms, project syncs, knowledge sharing sessions, meetings with partner teams and XFN.
On average, at current level I think I spend 30-40% of time coding whereas rest goes in meetings, architecture, alignments and other things needed to get the wheel moving.
Jade: I’m quite lucky to be honest, we don’t have a ridiculous amount of meetings in my team.
We probably have around 3-4 hours worth of meetings per week, well unless you count pair/mob programming as meetings (which I don’t), with the majority of that being the daily meets we have to discuss what we’re working on and if we have any blockers/items to discuss.
Our team work really well together in that we do a lot of pair programming and working together to solve problems so it’s a real collaborative effort and you get to learn a tonne! In terms of coding, I’d say very similar to Hemant 30-40%, as the rest is working with the rest of the team and helping them and also designing the solution.
Do you have any suggestions on how to avoid burnout when working for such a large corp?
Hemant:
Do not overcommit and underdeliver. It is always better to undercommit and over deliver than vice versa.
Decline meetings where you cannot contribute or benefitted from.
45 minutes of daily activity has proven out to be a game changer for both my personal and mental health.
Celebrate small milestones. This helps me feel accomplished and indicates you are doing well.
If you are stuck on a bug or issue for a long time, the best thing you can do is go for a walk or take a nap.
Seek help more than often. Build your support circle and always reach out when you feel overwhelmed.
Always have things to look up to. Be it reading books after work or hitting gym or playing tennis.
Jade: I think there are a few things that help me avoid burnout.
The first is to prioritise the work I do, for work that I prioritise I set time blocks for when I’m going to do that work as well as make note on any things I need to follow up and chase. I like to be transparent with what I’m working on so I always ensure that I have it added to the board.
There’s can be a temptation to overcommit and try and do everything, but this will eventually be to your detriment if you end up letting people down because you can’t deliver on everything.
If you are asked to take on more responsibilities, look at your current work load and work with your boss and colleagues to see if there is anything you can delegate to someone else so that you can properly commit to the thing you have been asked to do.
If you could give one piece of advice for those looking to level up, what would it be?
Hemant:
Be proactive and have a learning mindset, the world is changing too fast and you need to explore different things, build a network and always be learning.
Take extreme ownership of your work and have an entrepreneurial mindset. Take ownership as if you are the CEO.
Prioritize your work ruthlessly and delegate to others. This way, you focus on most impactful things and also help others grow.
Jade:
Always ask questions to understanding the reasonings behind why you are doing something, this helps you uncover the truth.
Take accountability of the work you do, if you make a mistake admit to it and help figure out the fix.
Take ownership of the work you do, drive it through to completion instead of throwing it over the fence.
Never stop learning, keep growing your skills each and every day in order to become a better software engineer and team mate!
And that’s it from us!
I just want to say thanks again to Hemant Pandey for joining me for this collaboration, it’s great to see the differences and also similarities in being a senior software engineer at two big tech companies across the pond from each other.
If you liked this blog post don’t forget to like, restack, subscribe to both of our newsletters and also don’t forget to check out my YouTube video where I answer everyone’s Q&A’s from last weeks LinkedIn post!
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It was so fun collaborating with you Jade. Hopefully viewers get some perspective out of this 🙌🏼
Enjoyed reading these perspectives and side by side comparisons. Great and fun post!