Ten lessons learned from Facebook
2021 October
It's bittersweet to say that today is my last day at Facebook. I interned at the company twice and worked fulltime for about 18 months, and saying it was instrumental to my growth would be a major understatement.
Here's some lessons learned:
On ramping up...
- Read through as many pull requests as possible, it’ll help you understand what other people are working on.
- Don't be afraid to ask questions on pull requests. Often times an outsider's perspective is more valuable than someone already familiar with the codebase.
- Document stuff as you learn it, then you can teach it to others ramping up later on.
On coding...
- Read the documentation of the language you're using end-to-end. It'll save you so much time in the future.
- When reading new code, start with data structures & interfaces before diving into the actual code itself.
- If something feels wrong in terms of implementation, it's probably wrong.
On success...
- Great coders aren't necessarily great engineers. Code wins arguments in the short-term, but in the long-term relationships are key.
- De-risk as much as possible as early as possible.
- Help others as much as possible.
- Over-communicate, both your successes and when you need help.