Two weeks ago, I shared Evan’s writing on what helped him grow from Junior to Staff at Meta in 3 years. His entire post hinges on that you need to

Everything I Know About Shipping Code Faster

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2025-01-19 14:00:16

Two weeks ago, I shared Evan’s writing on what helped him grow from Junior to Staff at Meta in 3 years. His entire post hinges on that you need to blaze through your core responsibilities to free up time for growth.

I interviewed Evan last week so you can hear the answer in his own words soon (aiming to share that next week). Before that, I wanted to share some thoughts since it’s one of the most important parts of growing your impact. Here’s everything I know about shipping more in less time.

Before you start writing code, you need to figure out what changes to make and where to make them. If you want to do this fast, you need to:

Become fluent at code search. Most codebases are too large to keep in your head. When trying to find where to make changes, you could spend hours reading unfamiliar code which can be a huge time sink. If you’re good at code search, you should be able to find where to make a change in minutes. Learning code search and the relevant keyboard shortcuts is well worth the time investment.

Know who knows what. Again, since codebases are too large for any one engineer to know entirely, you’ll need to rely on others to get up to speed in unfamiliar places. You need to learn who knows what (ask around or check the git blame) and you have to use your soft skills to get the information you need.