Mr Pandey was at his peak of creativity.
Rahul Pandey quit Meta in 2022 after spending five years in that company as its tech lead and manager and getting paid more than Rs 6.5 Crore annually. A South Asian engineer working for Facebook in California said he suffered immense levels of anxiety while working there.
On LinkedIn, Mr Pandey wrote, "My journey was not a straight shot to counting $100 bills. In fact, for the first six months after I joined Facebook, I was extremely anxious. I felt imposter syndrome as a senior engineer, I struggled to adapt to the company's culture and tooling."
He revealed that he did not seek any help from his colleague because he thought it would "out" him as someone who didn't deserve to be a senior engineer. His confidence took another hit a mere year after joining, as Facebook encountered internal struggles, witnessing a decline in its stock value. Amid this turmoil, many of Pandey's colleagues left to join other firms, and the project he was involved in experienced numerous delays.
"I had only been at the company for a year, though, so I felt it was too soon to jump ship. Instead, I made a concerted effort to improve my performance," he told Business Insider.
At the end of his second year at Facebook, Mr Pandey was at his peak of creativity. He built a tool extensively used by engineers in various divisions thereby saving lots of time. According to Mr Pandey, "I not only had the technical knowledge to complete my work, but I also had enough context to lead projects. This is a critical part of being a senior engineer and beyond (staff or principal engineer)," Mr Pandey said,
Later on, he was promoted and he got about two crores of equity apart from the basic salary which was roughly two crore rupees. Nevertheless, due to Covid, Pandey started looking for alternative options outside the parent company of Facebook.
"For my last year at Facebook, I transitioned into a manager role and switched teams after three years in the same organisation. As 2021 wrapped up, I began exploring the world beyond Meta," he told the media outlet.
He added, "After almost ten years in tech, I had achieved some degree of financial freedom, and I realised how much more I could learn beyond engineering."
Mr Pandey quit the tech giant in 2022 to build his own startup, Taro, to help other software engineers grow their careers.
"My total compensation in 2021 exceeded $800,000 due to sustained strong performance and a run-up in the Meta stock price. I was in the top 1 percent of income earners in the country! At that level, the money doesn't actually feel deserved: luck plays a huge role," he shared.