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Meta engineer Ryan Peterman left to pursue passion projects full-time

2026-02-03 · 18:00 UTC ·ryanlpeterman ·3 min read

Brief

Peterman's departure illustrates the classic tension between financial security at big tech companies and entrepreneurial pursuits. His decision was triggered by a Meta reorganization that would have required him to build a new ML infrastructure team, creating ethical concerns about leaving after recruiting people. The financial details reveal the reality of content creation economics - his podcast generated nearly $15k in YouTube revenue but required $17.6k in video editing plus additional travel and production costs for in-person episodes. His hardware venture, Compose, addresses a personal pain point in ergonomic keyboards, suggesting he's following the classic advice of building solutions to problems he personally experiences. The 6-month runway is typical for early-stage entrepreneurs, though relatively short given the capital requirements of hardware development.

Why it matters

Meta engineer Ryan Peterman left to pursue passion projects full-time:

Key details

  • [transition] Left Meta after 7+ years despite unvested stock to work on podcast and hardware startup
  • [economics] Podcast has generated $15k revenue but cost $25k+ in production expenses
  • [projects] Building ergonomic keyboard hardware company 'Compose' and continuing career-focused podcast
  • [runway] Has 6 months of funding at current burn rate before needing revenue
Cleaned source text

title: @ryanlpeterman: I spent a few months working at Amazon before joining Meta over 7 years ago. At ...

author: ryanlpeterman

content_type: twitter_article

published: 2026-02-03T18:00:32+00:00

source_url: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman/status/2018746441905078443

word_count: 723

I spent a few months working at Amazon before joining Meta over 7 years ago. At Amazon, I worked in

I spent a few months working at Amazon before joining Meta over 7 years ago. At Amazon, I worked in a small satellite office on a team that wasn’t using source control and a lot of what I worked on didn’t see the light of day.

Within weeks working at Meta, I was learning a ton and trusted to land code that hit production in the same day. Also, the people I got to work with were incredible. I always loved when a fix for a site-wide outage seemed impossible, then someone (usually Haixia) dropped a diff that saved the day. When you work with people who do excellent work, it’s inspiring.

There are many things that I’m grateful to Meta for, but the number one thing is the excitement I got out of the work. Working on something you’re intrinsically motivated by is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Why Leave Then?

About a year ago, I started a podcast to practice speaking and share the software engineering career stories that inspired me. Everything felt new, and I was learning a lot. After work, I kept thinking about ways to make the podcast better.

At first, my goal was just to post once a month and see how it went. After a few episodes, I saw that people liked the content and I enjoyed working on it even more.

Every now and then, I’d wonder what it’d be like to work on my passion project full time, but it seemed far off since I’ve only lost money on the podcast. So far, YouTube has paid $14,994.63, and I’ve spent $17,600 on video editing. For

some episodes like the Boris one

, I also paid for travel, hotels, and production crews which adds probably about $8k more in costs across in-person episodes.

I don’t say that for sympathy. At that time, my unvested Meta stock had went up a lot so I used that to pay for my passion project. This did tie me to Meta financially though.

Why I Pulled the Trigger Early

A few months ago, there was a big reorg at Zuck’s level that moved me and a lot of engineers in my org. At first, I was excited. The reorg made sense, and the new org I was now a part of was building ML infrastructure that I thought would be an interesting technical challenge.

However, the more I thought about building up a new team the more I felt off. I kept thinking about my passion project and the dream of doing it full time. It felt selfish to build a team (I was a manager in the new org) and then leave if my podcast kept growing.

So before we moved people around, I decided to go for my dream early. I will miss the unvested stock that I left behind, I’m sure, but hopefully it’s not something I will think about at the end of my life.

What’s Next

I have two passion projects I’m working on:

The Peterman Pod

I plan to keep it focused on people’s career stories. I love hearing how people navigated their careers and the podcast has been such a great excuse to get to talk to

heroes of mine

. One day, it would be amazing to have people like Jeff Dean or John Carmack on!

Compose

I’ve used ergonomic keyboards for ~5 years now because of my wrist pain. After a bunch of research I could never find exactly what I was looking for. So what I’m building is the ergonomic keyboard that I wish existed. Here are a few pictures (not renders) of a prototype we made:

I have earmarked about 6 months of money at my current burn rate to fund this new career direction. If I want to keep working on these projects for longer than that, I’ll need to figure out how to make some money.

My immediate idea is to get a sponsor for the podcast. If I do, I’ll make sure it is genuine and helpful. I won’t promote anything I don’t use myself.

Anyway, thank you for your support. Working on my passion projects is something I’m only lucky enough to consider because of you all.

Thank you for reading,

Ryan Peterman

Posted: 2026-02-03T18:00:32.000Z

Engagement: 602 likes, 0 retweets, 62 replies