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Move Fast: How Facebook Builds Software
Over the last fifteen years, every major aspect of our lives has changed because of Facebook. You may not like Facebook, but you can't deny its success. And to a large degree, that success stems from the "move fast" ethos. The entire culture of Facebook is built for speed.
Move Fast is an exploration of modern software strategies and tactics through the lens of Facebook. Relying on in-depth interviews with more than two dozen Facebook engineers, this book explores the product strategy, cultural principles, and technologies that made Facebook the dominant social networking company. Most importantly, Move Fast investigates how you can apply those strategies to your creative projects.
It's not easy to build a software company, but once you know how to move fast, your company will be prepared to build a strategy that benefits from the world's rapid changes, rather than suffering from them.
Move Fast is an exploration of modern software strategies and tactics through the lens of Facebook. Relying on in-depth interviews with more than two dozen Facebook engineers, this book explores the product strategy, cultural principles, and technologies that made Facebook the dominant social networking company. Most importantly, Move Fast investigates how you can apply those strategies to your creative projects.
It's not easy to build a software company, but once you know how to move fast, your company will be prepared to build a strategy that benefits from the world's rapid changes, rather than suffering from them.
123 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 6, 2021
62 people are currently reading
534 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 4, 2021
A great read overall. Lots of ideas (but not everything) to steal for engineering teams.
July 9, 2021
I've been a fan of the Software Engineering Daily podcast for several years. When I learned that the creator, Jeff Meyerson, was releasing a book and it was just $0.99 on Kindle I couldn't pass it up. That book was Move Fast: How Facebook Builds Software.
In general, I liked the book. Short, to the point, and pretty well written. The book could do with one less mention of how HTML5 wasn't enough for Facebook. Here are a few ideas from the book that I liked:
"From its early days, Google has had more of an air of “computer science,” an academic bent that emphasizes proofs, correctness, and seriousness. Facebook engineers are self-deprecating hackers who just want to build cool stuff. Facebook engineers are comfortable with the fact that sometimes things break, and sometimes mistakes are made"
"Tom [a notable engineering manager at FB] believes that engineers should be spending 75 percent of their time at work on things that they are passionate about, because engineers do their best work when they are creatively satisfied."
Bootcamp is FB's on boarding process. Fix real bugs on day one, find your team after several weeks.
"At Facebook, nobody forces an engineer to join a team. The managers who can’t sell their projects end up with bad teams and have trouble succeeding. This causes bad managers to get weeded out quickly."
"A clique will form around an influencer engineer. Influencers can win over the hearts and minds of other engineers, single-handedly changing the technical direction of a company for better or worse."
Push Karma - "a four-star rating system that tracked how responsible individual developers were in their management of software releases"
"Every engineering organization needs to decide how much time they’re going to spend cutting down the trees and how much time they’re going to spend sharpening their saws. Facebook had spent many years cutting down trees, and now it was time to sharpen their saws."
"When you work at Facebook, your work identity is kept seamlessly consistent across every tool, from video conferencing to code review. The uniformly integrated toolset makes the experience of being a Facebook employee totally unique. "
"Facebook invests so heavily in its infrastructure that most product engineers feel like they have effectively infinite resources. As they push the bounds of those resources, the infrastructure engineers respond by improving low-level abstractions such as compilers, databases, and networking protocols."
In general, I liked the book. Short, to the point, and pretty well written. The book could do with one less mention of how HTML5 wasn't enough for Facebook. Here are a few ideas from the book that I liked:
"From its early days, Google has had more of an air of “computer science,” an academic bent that emphasizes proofs, correctness, and seriousness. Facebook engineers are self-deprecating hackers who just want to build cool stuff. Facebook engineers are comfortable with the fact that sometimes things break, and sometimes mistakes are made"
"Tom [a notable engineering manager at FB] believes that engineers should be spending 75 percent of their time at work on things that they are passionate about, because engineers do their best work when they are creatively satisfied."
Bootcamp is FB's on boarding process. Fix real bugs on day one, find your team after several weeks.
"At Facebook, nobody forces an engineer to join a team. The managers who can’t sell their projects end up with bad teams and have trouble succeeding. This causes bad managers to get weeded out quickly."
"A clique will form around an influencer engineer. Influencers can win over the hearts and minds of other engineers, single-handedly changing the technical direction of a company for better or worse."
Push Karma - "a four-star rating system that tracked how responsible individual developers were in their management of software releases"
"Every engineering organization needs to decide how much time they’re going to spend cutting down the trees and how much time they’re going to spend sharpening their saws. Facebook had spent many years cutting down trees, and now it was time to sharpen their saws."
"When you work at Facebook, your work identity is kept seamlessly consistent across every tool, from video conferencing to code review. The uniformly integrated toolset makes the experience of being a Facebook employee totally unique. "
"Facebook invests so heavily in its infrastructure that most product engineers feel like they have effectively infinite resources. As they push the bounds of those resources, the infrastructure engineers respond by improving low-level abstractions such as compilers, databases, and networking protocols."
September 3, 2021
It's a short and quite interesting book about how Facebook builds software, a few of its products its development culture in Facebook in general.
Not that much practical advice to be honest, but overall good reading.
Not that much practical advice to be honest, but overall good reading.
July 29, 2021
Well it was nice to read how a software operates without glorifying it.
July 17, 2021
The audiobook is pubicly available from Software Daily podcast.
July 8, 2021
This book has been an instant pre-order since I've always liked Jeff Meyerson’s Software Engineering podcast. Jeff asks industry experts really great questions that are usually related to strategic aspects of software engineering. I am a huge proponent of those questions since they often predetermine the purely technical ones. I also think these questions are overlooked by folks in technology in many cases.
The book is actually a use case story of how Facebook adapted to the growth of the mobile platform and how the company managed to build and hold their position on the market. The company always balances trade-offs, product-wise, strategy-wise, cultural-wise and software engineering-wise. The book examines how Facebook dealt with some of the tradeoffs along the way in a variety of aspects of running a company, mostly related to software engineering through the lenses of Facebook ex-employees.
The move fast is not a flat phrase and actually means a thoughtful strategy that imposes quick action with possible expenses in mind.
I appreciated most of the chapters on Facebook’s product strategy. Chapters on dealing with the growth of mobile, the threat of Google+, acquisition of a cloud computing company Parse and Facebook’s culture. In these chapters, I felt the idea of a move fast strategy was present most. The more technological chapters presented information I knew, in slightly better detail. For me, the book is strongest in parts that emphasize and gives us a notion of comparison of some of the trade-off's Facebook decided to take. For example, in the early stage of the company, strategically giving priority to quick iteration at the expense of consistency in some parts of the product and not writing tests at all e.g., the user view, whereas seeking consistency in strategic business logic parts e.g., the ad manager and the development of ReactJS.
It's easy to connect with the text and who is cited there. Often when a new person is introduced, their personality and even visual traits are outlined. The book is highly readable and perhaps not too dense in information; however, the delivery is very smooth.
The book is actually a use case story of how Facebook adapted to the growth of the mobile platform and how the company managed to build and hold their position on the market. The company always balances trade-offs, product-wise, strategy-wise, cultural-wise and software engineering-wise. The book examines how Facebook dealt with some of the tradeoffs along the way in a variety of aspects of running a company, mostly related to software engineering through the lenses of Facebook ex-employees.
The move fast is not a flat phrase and actually means a thoughtful strategy that imposes quick action with possible expenses in mind.
I appreciated most of the chapters on Facebook’s product strategy. Chapters on dealing with the growth of mobile, the threat of Google+, acquisition of a cloud computing company Parse and Facebook’s culture. In these chapters, I felt the idea of a move fast strategy was present most. The more technological chapters presented information I knew, in slightly better detail. For me, the book is strongest in parts that emphasize and gives us a notion of comparison of some of the trade-off's Facebook decided to take. For example, in the early stage of the company, strategically giving priority to quick iteration at the expense of consistency in some parts of the product and not writing tests at all e.g., the user view, whereas seeking consistency in strategic business logic parts e.g., the ad manager and the development of ReactJS.
It's easy to connect with the text and who is cited there. Often when a new person is introduced, their personality and even visual traits are outlined. The book is highly readable and perhaps not too dense in information; however, the delivery is very smooth.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 1, 2021
This purported to be a summary of how Facebook’s engineering culture works, but was entirely too complementary to Facebook and did not (at all) address Facebook current innovation problem
Had some very useful insights though — particularly about Facebook in the 2008-2013 period. My main takeaways were:
- Facebook’s biggest early mistake was focusing too much on html5 instead of native (because they started in a pre iPhone world). But they managed to pivot quickly
- The company’s general approach was to start hacky and iterate quickly from there. But you couldn’t improve html5 with just iteration
- Web engineers wanted to move quickly. But mobile engineers needed more time. So the pace of development significantly slowed
- Innovators dilemma. Don’t sacrifice the future. If something is small but growing fast, pay close attention to it. Example: all desktop users were future mobile users in 2011/12. So it made sense to focus on mobile even though desktop was the majority of users at the point
- Google+ was a real threat. But cultures were different. Google+ engineers were working normal hours, Facebook was working 7 days/week and treating Google+ as an existential threat
- Experimentation is inportant — “we don’t make services to make more money, we make money to build and experiment with more services”
- Facebook had a bootcamp process for new hires. Employee gets familiar with the tooling, code review, and stack and actually has to fix bugs in the first six weeks they are hired across multiple teams
Had some very useful insights though — particularly about Facebook in the 2008-2013 period. My main takeaways were:
- Facebook’s biggest early mistake was focusing too much on html5 instead of native (because they started in a pre iPhone world). But they managed to pivot quickly
- The company’s general approach was to start hacky and iterate quickly from there. But you couldn’t improve html5 with just iteration
- Web engineers wanted to move quickly. But mobile engineers needed more time. So the pace of development significantly slowed
- Innovators dilemma. Don’t sacrifice the future. If something is small but growing fast, pay close attention to it. Example: all desktop users were future mobile users in 2011/12. So it made sense to focus on mobile even though desktop was the majority of users at the point
- Google+ was a real threat. But cultures were different. Google+ engineers were working normal hours, Facebook was working 7 days/week and treating Google+ as an existential threat
- Experimentation is inportant — “we don’t make services to make more money, we make money to build and experiment with more services”
- Facebook had a bootcamp process for new hires. Employee gets familiar with the tooling, code review, and stack and actually has to fix bugs in the first six weeks they are hired across multiple teams
July 25, 2021
Interesing book to learn about how Facebook deals with software development
“Move fast” is a remedy for market adjustments, technology changes, and cultural stagnation. For a company to move fast, the entire company must be oriented around speed.
- Jeff Meyerson
I follow Jeff Meyerson by listening to "Software Engineering Daily" for years, and I consider him "Larry King" of software development interviews. The first time I listen to this book for free was at his podcast. After listening to it, I decided to buy and read it, because there is so much wisdom in this book that listening is not enough; you want to read and digest information about Facebook.
I also like the size of the book; it is very focused and very concise. I want Jeff to write more books about different companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, or Netflix.
I'm a software engineer, and this book was very interesting not only for managers but also for engineers to see how Facebook anticipates ideas and software development practices.
“Move fast” is a remedy for market adjustments, technology changes, and cultural stagnation. For a company to move fast, the entire company must be oriented around speed.
- Jeff Meyerson
I follow Jeff Meyerson by listening to "Software Engineering Daily" for years, and I consider him "Larry King" of software development interviews. The first time I listen to this book for free was at his podcast. After listening to it, I decided to buy and read it, because there is so much wisdom in this book that listening is not enough; you want to read and digest information about Facebook.
I also like the size of the book; it is very focused and very concise. I want Jeff to write more books about different companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, or Netflix.
I'm a software engineer, and this book was very interesting not only for managers but also for engineers to see how Facebook anticipates ideas and software development practices.
September 12, 2021
This is a super fast read - and if you like Jeff Myserson's podcast Software Engineering Daily - you'll enjoy this read.
It's a fun look inside the engineering culture of Facebook - which historically has prioritized moving fast above all else - though lately they have changed and included testing and huge investments in developer tooling and platforms and infrastructure to make life easier for everyone.
A lot is written about the life/death decision when faced with the move from web to mobile - and they originally built everything in HTML before moving to native iOS and Android apps.
Also - a great dive into what the bootcamp is like at Facebook (all new engineers have to go through it) and some of the amazing tech they have built (React, GraphQL).
As a data engineer, I use Presto (another of Facebook's inventions) frequently.
Highly recommended.
It's a fun look inside the engineering culture of Facebook - which historically has prioritized moving fast above all else - though lately they have changed and included testing and huge investments in developer tooling and platforms and infrastructure to make life easier for everyone.
A lot is written about the life/death decision when faced with the move from web to mobile - and they originally built everything in HTML before moving to native iOS and Android apps.
Also - a great dive into what the bootcamp is like at Facebook (all new engineers have to go through it) and some of the amazing tech they have built (React, GraphQL).
As a data engineer, I use Presto (another of Facebook's inventions) frequently.
Highly recommended.
July 12, 2021
i’m a big fan of Software Engineering Daily so I thought I would give this a read. Pulling from lots of interviews, Jeff does a great job of summarizing how Facebook builds software, from the perspective of product, culture, and engineering. It was also a very quick read - I finished it in one day.
June 19, 2025
If you’ve ever wondered what “move fast and break things” actually looks like in practice, this book delivers. Alongside Chaos Monkeys, it offers a revealing glimpse into Facebook’s engineering culture. Fast-paced and fascinating, it highlights the balance between innovation and infrastructure at one of the world’s most impactful tech firms.
July 18, 2021
This book doesn't try to put Facebook on a pedestal, rather portraits the aspects of Product, Culture and Technology at FB - based on interviews with current and former FB employees. As a software engineer at heart I loved to get to know how FB operates and the challenges they went through
September 28, 2021
Una serie de opiniones de gente de Facebook relacionada con el desarrollo de software que nos permite ver un poco de la cultura de esa máquina de generar software llamada FB.
De hecho es su principal defecto, que a muchos nos gustaría conocer más a profundidad sobre esa cultura.
De hecho es su principal defecto, que a muchos nos gustaría conocer más a profundidad sobre esa cultura.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2021
A good compact introduction to the history of engineering at facebook in last decade.
July 9, 2021
Jeff has done an awesome job with the book. Move Fast should be a must to read for those who are working in the tech industry.
July 21, 2021
There are some cool insights like Aqua Hiring, Boostrap Selection, Code Wins Arguments.
August 7, 2021
It could have easily been a 30min article at best. Very repetitive and hard to read after the first two chapters. I was expecting much more.
August 9, 2021
Very well crafted book. I recommend everyone to read specially problem solver. Jeff you're amazing the way you shared so much about Facebook in brief
November 7, 2021
The author describes the way Facebook handled the necessary changes over the period to stay on top. Lesson learned: One who is not flexible and does not move fast loses the game.
November 16, 2021
Building culture may be harder than building software
January 2, 2022
This book should've been a 3 part article on the author's blog. Nothing in this book offers concrete advice for software engineers nor tech companies.
August 14, 2022
Loved it. Books like this are so much more valuable when they are written by a developer instead of a journalist.
September 8, 2022
Early chapters are good as a reminder of the contrast between Facebook vs. Google cultures, some interesting points to take onboard about building cultures that will support productive teams.
May 3, 2025
30% interesting info
50% outdated
20% boring
50% outdated
20% boring
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews