I’m Michael. I was a principal engineer at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I was the top code contributor of all time and also conducted hundreds of interviews. I recently co-founded Formation.dev, an engineering fellowship that trains and refers engineers directly into big tech. Ask me Anything!

While I haven't pivoted careers, I did have a pivot in college. My college program was structured to let you choose a career direction in your 3rd year. I was expecting to go into Physics or Nano-engineering and hardly took any computer programming course in my first two years. For me: passion. I loved reading articles about nano-engineering and black holes, but I would get distracted and my mind would wonder. When I start programming on something that I'm passionate about I almost can't stop. I dream about ways to make the code better. I think it's a very privileged position to be in to even explore these passions, which is why I try so hard now to help people who discover that passion later on to efficiently nurture it to make it a career.