Instagram Staff (IC6) Promo Despite 10 Team Switches in 9 Years (Career Story)

Sash Zats grew to be a Staff Engineer (IC6) at IG despite switching teams 10 times in 9 years. His career journey was a series of jumps to exciting projects and letting career growth happen as a byproduct. I interviewed him to show you how team switches can play out.

We discussed:

• How 10 team switches in 9 years affected his career

• The story behind the Instagram blockchain initiative

• His 2 diff in 6 month performance review

• What working on Instagram Threads was like pre-launch

• The value of prototyping

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(00:49) First team: iOS on Newsfeed Delight

(05:30) What makes a good designer partner?

(08:30) Joining a hardware team

(12:08) 2 diffs in 6 months

(15:03) Joining the Instagram blockchain team

(21:37) Joining Instagram Threads pre-launch

(28:53) Working with an exceptional engineer (Peter)

(33:02) Working on AI prototyping teams

(37:15) Reflecting on team switching’s impact on career growth

(44:35) Why leave Meta

(46:15) Advice for younger self

(47:53) Outro

Where to find Sash:

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

• X/Twitter: https://x.com/zats

Where to find Ryan:

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

• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman

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

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

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