Takeaways from a PyTorch Eng Director at MSL

John Myles White, a former Engineering Director on PyTorch at Meta (MSL), shares candid insights on big tech career dynamics. Key takeaways: promotion culture has become so dominant that engineers ship low-quality or unnecessarily complex software just to hit promo bars; employee bargaining power has significantly weakened post-COVID as the perceived surplus of software engineers (amplified by AI productivity gains) lets management make decisions less favorable to employees; and the best way to avoid these dynamics is to deliberately choose teams that prioritize engineering excellence over promo velocity, even if career progression is slower.