Meta Tech Podcast
Episodes
84: Trust But Canary: Configuration Safety at Scale
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever wondered how Meta makes config rollouts safe at scale? In this episode, Pascal sits down with Ishwari and Joe to discuss Meta's approach...
83: Patch Me If You Can: AI Codemods for Secure-by-Default Android Apps
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
At Meta, even seemingly simple engineering tasks—like updating an API—become monumental undertakings when you're dealing with millions of lines of...
82: CSS at Scale with StyleX
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It's not just Not Invented Here Syndrome. Some technologies like CSS simply don't scale if you're building some of the largest websites on the planet ...
81: From Zero to Polish: Building Meta Ray-Ban Display
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You've likely heard of Meta Ray-Ban Display by now — but what's it actually like to work on it? In this episode, Pascal talks to Kenan and Emanuel a...
80: Lowering emissions with the Open Compute Project
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Pascal talks to Dharmesh J. (DJ) and Lisa about the vision for the open, scalable future of networking hardware for AI and to break d...
79: Building Android apps in Meta's monorepository with Buck2
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you keep Android build times under control when your codebase spans tens of thousands of modules and millions of lines of Kotlin? In this episo...
78: Generating 3D Worlds with AI
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Creating 3D assets can be daunting, but does it have to be? Mahima and Rakesh are on a quest to democratize 3D content creation with AssetGen, a found...
ARCHIVE: What it's like to write code at Meta
01 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To not leave you without an episode for August, Pascal brings you an episode from the Archive. Back in August 2023 for Episode 55, Pascal spoke with K...
77: How to build a generic neuromotor interface
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Join Pascal as he explores the groundbreaking world of generic neuromotor interfaces with Jesse, Lauren, and Sean. Discover how these technologies ena...
76: From C to Rust on Mobile
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when decades-old C code, powering billions of daily messages, starts to slow down innovation? In this episode, we talk to Meta engineers ...
75: Open-sourcing Pyrefly - A faster Python type checker written in Rust
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pyrefly is a faster, open-source Python type checker written in Rust, succeeding Pyre. But what prompted the rewrite and what besides the language cho...
74: Taking the plunge - The engineering journey of building a Subsea Cable
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To ensure that everyone has access to resilient, high-speed and low-latency connections to Meta services, no matter where in the world they are, Meta ...
73: Mobile GraphQL at Meta in 2025
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Join Pascal and Sabrina on the latest Meta Tech Podcast episode as they discuss the evolution and future of GraphQL. From client-side consistency to i...
72: Multimodal AI for Ray-Ban Meta glasses
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the Meta Tech Podcast, host Pascal sits down with Shane, a research scientist at Meta, to explore the cutting-edge research behind ...
71: Translating Java to Kotlin at Scale
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you translate roughly ten million lines of Java code to Kotlin? Clicking in your the IDE gets pretty repetitive after a while and doesn't work ...
70: Jetpack Compose at Meta
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing a new Android UI Framework like Jetpack Compose into an existing app is easy right? Import some AARs and code away. But what if your app h...
69: To type or not to type — measuring productivity impact with DAT
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do types actually make you more productive or is it just more typing for you to do on the keyboard? That's just one of the questions we managed to ans...
68: How to Build a Mixed Reality Headset
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do you build your own mixed reality headset from sketch to scale? That's exactly what Alfred Jones, VP of hardware engineering at Meta Reality Lab...
67: Measuring Developer Productivity with Diff Authoring Time
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At Meta, engineers are our biggest asset which is why we have an entire org tasked with making them as productive as possible. But how do you know if ...
66: Inside Bento - Serverless Jupyter Notebooks at Meta
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bento is Meta's internal distribution of Jupyter Notebooks, an open-source web-based computing platform. Host Pascal is joined by Steve who worked wit...
65: Getting Ready for Post-Quantum Cryptography
29 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We don't know when but at some point in the future we will face what researchers call a "Quantum Apocalypse". This is when quantum computers will be a...
64: Caddy - Building the next generation of CAD software for Mixed Reality
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After sitting in one too many Zoom meetings looking at flat images of 3D models, mechanical engineers Ed, Jason, Fan, and Raghavan decided that they c...
63: The key to a happy Rust/C++ relationship
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Aida was part of one of the first Rust teams here at Meta. One of the biggest challenges was interacting with the large amount of existing C++. With t...
62: Building Threads for Web
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The basic version of Threads for web was built in just under three months by two engineers, mirroring the nimble engineering practices we talked about...
61: Image Quality Improvements at Scale
11 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, trillions of image download requests are made from Meta's family of apps. Zuzanna works on the Media Platform Team that owns the entire flo...
60: Simplified Executable Deployment with DotSlash
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Distributing binaries and toolchains to developers is a pain but DotSlash makes it a breeze. Instead of committing large, platform-specific executable...
59: Meta ❤️ Python 3.12
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the second time in just a few months, we are talking Python on the Meta Tech Podcast. Python 3.12 features a whole range of new features, many of ...
58: Advancing GenAI at Meta
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For this last episode of 2024, Pascal talks with Devi, an AI research director at Meta. They talk about the history of AI at Meta, some of the basic t...
ARCHIVE: From Facebook Home to Instagram Stories
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We're jumping into our time machine and going back to 2018 for an interview with Will B. about the various twists and turns that led to the creation o...
57: Writing and linting Python at scale
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Python at Meta is huge. Not only does it famously power Instagram's backend, but it underpins our configuration systems, much of our AI work and many ...
56: How Threads was built in 5 months
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Threads went from idea to 100M users in just about five months. This would not have been possible without building on top of Meta's existing systems a...
55: What it's like to ship code at Meta
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For episode 55, Pascal speaks with Katherine and returning guest Dustin, two software engineers at Meta about how to ship code at Meta. Why do we have...
54: Building Key Transparency at WhatsApp
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In April, WhatsApp announced the launch of a new cryptographic security feature to automatically verify a secured connection based on key transparency...
53: Offensive security at Meta's Red Team X
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Red Team X is a security team at Meta that is responsible for finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in third-party products that could impact Meta's ...
52: The success story behind PyTorch
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
PyTorch is now one of the most popular machine learning frameworks out there but that was not a foregone conclusion when it was released in 2016. Our ...
51: Buck2 - a large-scale build system
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For episode 51, Pascal speaks with Neil and Marie, two of the engineers behind Buck2, our open source, large scale build system. Thousands of develope...
50: De-identified authentication at scale
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you hear privacy and your first thought is laborious processes and access management, this interview may be just as mind-expanding for you as it wa...
49: Kotlin DevX at Instagram
27 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lisa works on the Dev Craft team at Instagram that embarked on a journey to bring Kotlin to the Instagram for Android code base a little over three ye...
48: A 94% reduction for basic video compute time on Instagram
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan and his team found a quick way of reducing the compute resources spent on encoding videos for Instagram by 94%, but that was actually the easy pa...
47: Sapling - A scalable, user-friendly source control system
24 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Confused by the syntax of git's rebase command? Overwhelmed with branch management? Check out Meta's new git-compatible source control management syst...
46: Cross-Platform Video Calling with RSYS
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's the most wonderful time of the year: The time to talk about calling libraries that power most of our audio and video calls across Meta's app. Ali...
45: Syncing GitHub to Monorepo with Jon
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Back from a short hiatus, Pascal is joined by Jon to talk about the infrastructure that allows commit to sync between Meta's monorepo and GitHub. Whil...
BONUS: Comparing Company Cultures with Jay
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ever wondered how the culture of big companies like Meta, Microsoft and Amazon differ? Jay comes with a fairly unique perspective as he has now worked...
44: Building a Cross-App Messaging Platform
29 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
msys is the technology that underpins most of the messaging products Meta offers. What started as a small library in C wrapping sqlite is now used by ...
43: Building for the metaverse with Cami
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cami returns to the Meta Tech Podcast, with now having 18 months of AR/VR experience under her belt. Cami is excited to share what developers can now ...
42: Building People-Centric Apps with Maria
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The approach we take to building the Facebook app is based around three adjectives: trustworthy, people-centric and unified. In this episode, Pascal t...
41: Earth Week Special - Carbon Explorer with Bilge
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For our second special for Earth Week, we are talking to Bilge who works as a research scientist at Meta AI. Her open-source project Carbon Explorer e...
40: Earth Week Special - Green AI with Ramya
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The most recent IPCC report has reiterated that the climate crisis is an all hands on deck situation. We all need to think about the impact our action...
39: White Labeling Messenger for iOS with Amy
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Amy joined the Workplace team nearly seven years ago (back then still under the name Facebook for Work), it became clear that it would require a ...
38: From Sales to Tech - How Kevin Made The Switch
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin has had an unusual career path that led him to an engineering role at Meta. He first joined the company in a sales role before he moved into a m...
37: Faster and Smaller Messenger for iOS With Amy
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
New year, new us! Inside Facebook Mobile is now the Meta Tech Podcast but Pascal will continue to bring you stories about mobile development and many ...
36: Developer Experience with Chandrika
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Keeping engineers effective is not a small task when you work at Meta's scale. Many of the tools you take for granted simply break or become unbearabl...
35: Facebook App Health with Jon
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know that you can "rage shake" your phone to create a bug report in most Meta apps? If you did, have you ever wondered what happened after you...
34: Open Source Developer Advocacy with Cami
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cami is a developer advocate for Open Source and Facebook Reality Labs (FRL), our AR/VR organisation. In this episode's interview Cami and our host Pa...
33: Switching Teams at FB with Sash
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Facebook has a unique recruitment model. Instead of being assigned to one team, you first end up in Bootcamp, where you learn how the company function...
32: Measuring UI Quality with Sara, Aaron and Patrik
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For the third and final episode focusing on UI quality, Pascal is joined by Sara, Patrik and Aaron to discuss how design reviews happen at Facebook. I...
31: Intentional Architecture with Yuan and Dustin
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"What's Facebook's mobile architecture?" is a question we hear often. Instead of top-down MVC, MVW or MVVM, Facebook delegates the responsibility of c...
30: Linting for Design Quality with Elle
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We are continuing our focus on UI Quality from last episode and are diving deep into design linters. Elle and her team work on Facebook-internal Figma...
29: Design Systems with Sriram
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
To improve consistency across our family of apps, engineers have built a large number of reusable components. But how do designers communicate to engi...
28: Modularising iOS Apps with Fabio
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fabio joins Pascal to go deep into a listener question: How does Facebook modularise iOS applications? After discussing the state of the iOS build sys...
27: Using Data for Better Android Notifications with Garima
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Garima joins Rachel (@rachelnabors) and Pascal (@passy) to discuss the challenges of building custom layouts for notifications in a fragmented Android...
26: Kotlin Redux with Thomas
26 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rachel (@rachelnabors) and Pascal (@passy) are back for another interview about Android infrastructure at FB. Thomas joins them to share how the inter...
25: Instagram Reels with Kevin and Martin
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For another socially distant interview, Pascal and Rachel are joined by Martin and Kevin who work on Instagram Reels, which had its global launch just...
24: COVID-19 Hub with Chang, Jarman and Zaven
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Inside Facebook Mobile is back for a special interview with the team behind the Facebook COVID-19 Info Centre. Chang, Jarman and Zaven share their exp...
23: Organising the Women of React Remote Conf
17 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With large-scale public events seeming rather distant right now, the concept of virtual conferences is an exciting way to stay in touch with people an...
Update: No Interview Episode for March
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Unfortunately due to the current global pandemic, we don't have an interview for you, but stay tuned and subscribe to the feed for some remote intervi...
22: Scaling WhatsApp with Silky
29 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For the first time, Rachel and Pascal are joined by a guest from WhatsApp. Silky walks the two through a staggering array of optimisations WhatsApp de...
21: Kotlin at Facebook with Sergey
31 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pascal is joined by Rachel in the co-host chair for this first episode of the new decade. The two interview Sergey from the Android UI Frameworks team...
20: droidcon London 2019, Part II
20 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For the last episode of the decade, Pascal is joined by Inside Facebook Mobile royalty Emil, who shares what he has been up to since his last appearan...
19: droidcon London 2019, Part I
15 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pascal went mobile again and brought the mics to this year's droidcon Android conference in London. He interviewed the record-breaking six speakers Fa...
18: Outside Facebook Mobile at the London Mobile Forum 2019
18 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Once a year, Facebook invites developers from various companies to a cosy place somewhere in East London to talk for a day about scaling challenges on...
17: Hermes JS Engine Development with Marc
20 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every time we get to talk about an open-source project on our podcast, we couldn't be happier. This episode we have Marc to talk about Hermes, an open...
16: React Native Developer Advocacy and Documentation Engineering with Rachel
16 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Join us for this episode where Pascal and Fabio interview one of Facebook's new joiners: Rachel is a developer advocate on the React Core team in Lond...
15: Infer Static Analysis for Mobile Apps with Ezgi
17 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 15 features a topic that might sound familiar to you if you've listened to previous editions of Inside Facebook Mobile. It's a project that pr...
14: Facebook iOS UI Infrastructure with Adam
14 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 14 introduces Adam, the first dedicated iOS developer that Mihaela and Pascal have hosted on the podcast. Adam created ComponentKit, an iOS op...
13: Android UI Infrastructure with Hilal
17 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Did you watch F8 this year? You've probably seen the new Facebook blue and your app got a sleeker, more modern icon. Hilal is part of the team that ma...
12: Product Management on Workplace with Chiara
18 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Chiara is a Product Manager who supports the Workplace team. She joins Pascal and Mihaela on episode 12 to give some clarity on the role of a Product ...
11: Secure Networking on Android with Subodh
15 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Subodh, a software engineer leading the QUIC team in Menlo Park, joins us for episode 11 and talks with Mihaela and Pascal about Android networking. I...
10: FBLite and Fast Android Apps for Emerging Markets with Tal
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For the 10th episode of Inside Facebook Mobile, you can listen to Tal, a Technical Program Manager based in the Tel Aviv Facebook office, who joins Pa...
9: Android Bytecode Optimisation with Emma
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Pascal and Mihaela chat with Emma about Redex, an open-source bytecode optimiser for Android apps. Emma talks about the importance an...
8: Android Perf at Instagram with Mona
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Mihaela and Pascal chat with Mona from Instagram New York. We talk about Mona's journey from working on web in California to scroll p...
7: Performance and Instrumentation with Ariane
16 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ariane joins for an in-depth conversation about performance logging. With more than 10 years focusing on this problem, Ariane moved f...
6: The Story of Stories with Lillian
17 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Lillian joins Mihaela and Pascal in this episode to talk about Facebook Stories and how it took shape from a new sharing surface developed by three en...
5: Engineering Management with Balazs
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features Balazs, a manager on the Image Infra team, who joins Mihaela and Pascal to shed some light on what it's like to be an engineerin...
4: Product Design with Alisa and Stef
22 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Mihaela joins Pascal for the intro to discuss the latest news in Facebook open source including Litho and Flipper. We then move on to ...
3: Release Management with Julia
28 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Julia works as a technical program manager in release engineering. This means that she makes sure that all of Facebook's Android apps are released on ...
2.5: Quick take on Sonar with Emil
14 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We just released Sonar, an extensible mobile app debugger. In this Episode Pascal interviews Emil who started the project 18 months ago about what ins...
2: Facebook Home and Instagram Stories with Will
05 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This month Emil and Pascal talked to Will Bailey. Will has a long history at Facebook building tactile experiences and open source libraries. Now Will...
1: Litho and Sections with Mihaela
16 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we interview Mihaela who works on the Native UI Frameworks team. We talk about Litho and Sections and how open source at Facebook work...
0: Intro
11 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Emil and Pascal introduce themselves and tell you about what they've planned for their new podcast. Please send feedback to [email protected] or r...