Working at MANGA Company: Dos and Don'ts of Success

Many job seekers aspire to work for MANGA, and there's a good reason behind this aspiration. The acronym MANGA represents Meta, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Amazon, which collectively encompass the top five high-performing, large-cap companies in the United States' technology sector. These companies have exhibited remarkable growth and have wielded significant influence within both the technology and stock markets.

It's not easy to land a job with those tech leaders. Google receives almost three million job applications per year, Amazon gets nearly 18–20 job applications per minute, and Apple only has 2-3% acceptance rate. But once you receive a job offer, seize the moment!

Working for one of the tech giants offers golden opportunities for professional development, financial stability, networking prospects, and recognition. It also creates a unique set of circumstances to learn and adopt the principles of culture and values the company strives for. The long record of success these companies have demonstrated is only one of the reasons to follow them.

In this article, one of MANGA’s production engineers, Vlad Slepukhin (LinkedIn, GitHub), shares, in the first person, the Dos and Don’ts for the successful development of a career in a company of such scale. Vlad has been with Meta for 3 years working on database infrastructure a nearly 10-year-long background in cloud migrations, CI/CD processes, DevOps automation, and highly scalable infrastructure.

Do Embrace Curiosity; Don’t Let Your Ego Hold You Back

I cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain humility even if you possess significant expertise, to remain open to learning, to stay curious, and to not be afraid to ask questions.

Too many times throughout my nearly 10-year career, I’ve observed how an out-of-control ego is anything but conducive to success. To say the least, a lot of software engineers and members of the computer science community let their ego-driven behaviors hinder their success at work and outside of it. Instead, one of the mottos we follow, “Be direct and respect your colleagues”, invites you to open communication and collaboration and share your opinions of the projects, tasks, or approaches.

Asking questions has a double benefit. For an employee, it is a great opportunity to educate themselves about the architecture, policies, procedures, values, and culture of the team and the company. From the beginning, over 6-8 weeks of bootcamp and the first few weeks with the team, your mentors and managers continuously encourage you to ask as many questions as possible.

The team, in turn, is challenged to reassess their stance on some of these values and decisions. No one hushes a newcomer when they ask why we work this way and are not like other companies or when they introduce new practices; their fresh perspective brings us back to reality, where everything changes all the time. Due to the high demand for customizations caused by the unprecedented scale of our systems, we often get detached from new trends in the industry.

For instance, when I joined my team, there was no formal sprint planning or any sort of Agile-based project management methodology established there. Over the course of a couple of years, I was able to introduce the most beneficial aspects of Agile approaches, leaving aside the ones that were not contributing to projects or the team’s well-being. This was all made possible by both my being inquisitive and the team being open to sharing their wisdom.

Do Learn How to Collaborate; Don’t Work in Isolation

Despite the popular culture trope of engineers being antisocial and individualistic zealots, collaboration gets the best results. There are no projects on the MANGA scale that a single person can complete in a reasonable amount of time.

Learn to connect with your colleagues; in my company, they are mostly marvelous.

Leave your prejudices and judgmental attitudes in the past. Be open-minded, available, receptive, direct, and straightforward in your communication; truly listen to your colleagues; share your doubts and raise concerns; learn how to search for information and analyze it. Especially if you are fresh out of college, these skills can be applied to both work and life experiences.

For example, one of my former teammates, an engineer who was interested solely in writing code and did not enjoy either system design or cross-team communication, was failing for quite some time to obtain a promotion to the next level and had to leave the company. This proves that one cannot code their way to the top; you need to be more than a code machine, whether it is taking on larger responsibilities in terms of scale or scaling yourself through others’ impact by organizing people around projects and goals.

Do Focus on Solving Problems; Don’t Chase Fancy Titles

Staying focused on the practical aspects of my work is one of the most invaluable skills that I have acquired throughout my career at a MANGA company.

There are always way more projects, activities, and bugs than hours in a week, so you need to learn to prioritize addressing real issues. This attitude helps train a problem-solving mindset, which, in turn, often leads to unexpectedly successful results and meaningful contributions.

This happens to be more fulfilling than a prestigious title.

While no one disputes the value of pursuing promotion and recognition, at MANGA, these achievements aren't the primary focus. Instead, titles are earned through demonstrated competence and contributions. Evaluation hinges on the actual delivery of products and services to production, as well as the specific impact you've had on the journey.

Promotions aren't handed out as mere forms of motivation or simply because someone has spent a certain number of years in the company. They are granted when managers and senior engineers are confident that a candidate consistently meets the expectations of the next level over several quarters. This criteria holds particular importance, especially if you're adapting to a new role or company. It not only helps you establish credibility and reputation but also fosters trust within your team.

Do Align with Company Values; Don’t Be Singular in Your Focus

MANGA is not for people looking to achieve a certain status or position - the hierarchy is not even visible except for non-engineers in the direct chain of reporting to assess someone’s performance. Neither is it a place for those who prefer to work within a specific profession or area of expertise.

Before joining my current company, I had met a lot of professionals with a strong focus on their tasks and responsibilities only, excluding the overall success of a project. Stating that you specialize in Java engineering, therefore the production environment does not concern you, won’t fly here, especially in Production Engineering where different roles need to work together closely and require cross-functional understanding. If you are an engineer, you should be able to solve relevant issues, fix things, and improve them, regardless of your specialty. We are here to achieve larger goals together, so being adaptable and having a broad skill set is extremely valuable for increased productivity. There is little margin for an inflated ego.

Learning about the company’s values and culture early on and aligning with them can be really helpful in building rapport and synchronizing with your team. I am lucky to be in tune with what my company stands for. However, even if you disagree with your company, it’s an excellent opportunity to learn how to establish communication with all sorts of people - you can only benefit from such a skill.

Do Find Passion in Technical Challenges; Don’t Focus Solely on Company’s Goals

Many professionals would disagree, but I think it’s important to stay excited about the technical challenges of your job. I consider myself fortunate to be working at my company and to share its vision. I am literally addicted to what we do and the scale of our services. You may not be aligned with the company’s goals, but if you truly enjoy working on your project and overcoming obstacles to get it done, it will be way easier to find comfort and motivation amidst the company’s corporate culture.

Passion for technical challenges can drive personal and professional growth and innovation, which can benefit both you and your company. If possible, seek projects or tasks that align with your technical passion - you’ll find more fulfillment and satisfaction in your job. You need to strike a balance between contributing to the company’s success and pursuing your own interests within your role.

If you find a way to keep yourself motivated, you’ll eventually be rewarded by acquiring a great number of hard and soft skills. To say the least, you’ll obtain a fundamental understanding of how highly scalable systems are designed and the best practical knowledge possible (for which other employers would chase you). You’ll also learn how to connect with the team and the value of team effort.

Do Prioritise Effectively; Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin

As my manager likes saying: “It is not prioritized until it hurts”. Working at MANGA, you need to constantly excel at prioritization and balancing multiple projects. It’s a real challenge, considering the importance of delivering results of good quality for every project. Proactive planning, problem-solving, and prioritization are the keys to avoiding unnecessary challenges, crises, and negative consequences on a different scale.

Prioritizing effectively makes you more productive, as you can direct your effort to what matters most and optimize resources when necessary. Spreading yourself too thin often leads to burnout, decreased productivity and motivation, and a disrupted life/work balance.

There are a lot of great ideas; choose the one you consider the most impactful. and I still have a hard time picking the most important thing from the endless bucket of things that I would love to work on. Concentrating your effort on a few significant tasks or projects is often easier and more efficient than juggling numerous less important ones.

Do Adopt an Iterative Approach; Don't Strive for Perfection

At my MANGA, the “Better done than perfect” approach is what we breathe. There is no value in building a shiny solution that gets to production way too late. It makes more sense to release a product now and then iterate - it prevents premature optimization and often completely wrong approaches.

Moving fast is one of our core values. It sounds counterintuitive, but adopting an iterative approach helps strike a balance between the velocity and quality of a product. Moreover, it allows you to be more flexible to changing requirements, circumstances, and feedback. With iteration comes the learning process and the opportunity for improvement. Focus on making consistent progress rather than aiming for flawless outcomes. It not only creates paralysis in the working process but also increases levels of stress and anxiety associated with high expectations.

Consider that a great product is like a living organism that evolves and develops over time, with changes happening gradually to it.

Do Pace Yourself; Don't Treat It as a Sprint

Working at a MANGA company, especially in Production Engineering, has a marathon-like nature. It implies pacing yourself and managing your time, energy, and effort to avoid burnout, considering how long and challenging the project might be. Learn to take care of yourself and balance productivity and well-being. It will keep you strong in the face of stress and hardship that are inevitable on the seemingly endless route to more efficient and reliable infrastructure.

Aiming to achieve everything quickly requires intense effort over a short period of time and implies a risk of lower quality work, compromised results, and reduced performance in the long run. Needless to say, your increasing exhaustion and fatigue will put your health at risk and decrease your motivation.

To summarise, the key Dos and Don’ts for success at a MANGA company go beyond technical prowess and titles; it’s about adaptability, collaboration, and continuous learning. Embrace prioritization in all its forms, as it leads to a focused and productive working process, your own well-being, and more fulfillment and satisfaction from what you do. Stay dedicated to your passion for technology - it will get you through all the challenges and difficulties and help you become a better professional and person.