Playing The Long Game (Deb Liu, ex-Facebook VP & Ancestry CEO)

Lessons from six years without a promotion, raising three kids, and surviving cancer.

Most engineers I talk to are looking for the next review cycle win. The next bump. The next title change that will validate the work they’ve been doing for the last six months.

But

Deb Liu

thinks that’s a mistake.

You might know Deb, former VP at Facebook, ex-CEO of Ancestry, and author of Take Back Your Power. She has built products used by billions, gone on Lenny’s Podcast, on the board of Intuit, and founded the 30,000+ member community Women in Product. Besides being a proud mom of three, she is also open about her struggles with cancer.

Today, she’s here to share more about three topics that will challenge how you think about your own career:

1. Why short-term career thinking will quietly trap you.

2. How family choices shape your career trajectory

3. Why staying silent in key moments isn’t humility

Our discussion took place as a Q&A format. If you’re looking for a summary, I’ve summarized my takeaways at the end.

Without further ado, here’s our interview:

Career Stalls & Tradeoffs

You spent 11 years at Facebook. What’s something you believed early in your Facebook career that you’ve since changed your mind about?

Early in my career, I believed the biggest myth my immigrant parents taught me: put your head down, do great work, and people will reward your brilliance. That’s what school teaches you. Just do the work, get good grades, and move up to the next grade.

But the workplace is nothing like that. People value different skills. Perfect code or great ideas don’t always win. Communication, influence, and relationships matter a lot more than I realized.

Facebook was a shock in that way. You’re surrounded by incredibly talented people, and advancement isn’t just about doing your work well. It’s about making your impact visible. That doesn’t mean being the loudest in the room, but it does mean understanding what the company values and making sure your contributions are aligned and seen.

You mentioned before that you went 6 years without a promotion. Most people would quietly quit or leave. What kept you going? Do you regret staying?

Those six years weren’t me sitting still. I actually had three different jobs across three companies. But I was stalled in my title progression. I didn’t regret it because each move built new skills, and some of the work I did then still impacts my career today.

When my son was born, my career had always been front and center, but suddenly I wanted to be with him more than anything. He’s nineteen now, but back then I remember thinking: Why am I spending so much time away from him? I switched to four days a week and gave up my high-intensity job so I could be there in his early years.

I made deliberate trade-offs. For most of my kids’ entire childhood, I never traveled for work. In fact, I didn’t travel until I had weaned my youngest at age one. I knew that meant certain roles and opportunities were off the table. But that was okay. It was my choice. I had three children during that time. I was also pregnant with my youngest while my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. He then passed a few months after she was born. So a lot was happening outside of work that mattered more.

I joined Facebook right after maternity leave for my second child, Bethany. I sat my family down and said, “If I do this, I’m going to be working a lot more.” I wanted to give them a heads-up that I was going to be busy. To me, work-life balance is not about hours but being able to be there when they need me.

But for your readers, here’s the hard truth: I wasn’t actively managing my career during that time. I thought my managers at Facebook would see my work and push me forward, but I went through seven managers in 2.5 years. They were all wonderful in their own way, but no one was in my corner long enough to champion me until the 7th manager.

I learned that you have to be the product manager of your own career. You have to set your own milestones, know the promotion criteria, and make sure you’re filling those gaps deliberately.

Looking back at those 6 years, was there anything you would have done differently?

Hindsight is 20/20. When you’re in the moment, you’re just making the best decision with the data you have. I talk about this in my book.

I was born in Queens in New York. If you’ve ever taken the E or F train out toward Queens from Manhattan, you are going north, and then the train makes this sharp right turn. But you don’t feel it because you are on the train. You don’t notice until you look at a map later and realize you’re now 90 degrees from where you started.

Careers are like that. You don’t always feel the shift as it’s happening. Only when you look back do you see how far you’ve turned. Those six years without a promotion were like that for me. I was gathering skills, building experience, and preparing for the next stage, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time. I have no regrets because I have three amazing kids and an amazing life.

Perspectives

You've publicly shared that you recently drew the cancer card. How did your cancer diagnosis shift how you think about work?

This year really made me stop and think. Last year, my mammogram was totally clear. This year, when I went in, they told me there’s something ‘pretty suspicious.’ You hear that phrase enough times, and it’s almost like it becomes inevitable. Suddenly, I’m on this conveyor belt of biopsy, surgery, and radiation. I’m now on Tamoxifen, which reduces the chances of recurrence. Life is short.

And in those moments, none of the things you’ve achieved matter. It doesn’t matter what’s on your LinkedIn, it doesn’t matter what your title is. What matters is: where do you want to spend your time? What brings you joy?

Also, family has always been really important to me. Last year was especially hard. My mom passed away, and just a few months before that, both of my in-laws passed away. I was very close to all of them. We had planned to move in together; my mom had lived with me for over a decade after my dad died, and we had even built a house with a massive in-law unit so my in-laws could live right next door, connected to our home, so we could care for them.

Losing all three of them within nine months was incredibly difficult. It’s a stark reminder that behind every short bio or Wikipedia page, there’s an entire life being lived. With joys, losses, and deeply personal stories that don’t show up in the titles and bullet points.

You have a finite amount of time. I want to spend mine on the people and the work that truly matters to me.

Influence

For introverted engineers, what do you think most quiet or underestimated engineers get wrong when trying to build influence? How do you, as a product lead want them to act?

First, for product managers, communication is the job. It’s literally your job. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t like standing in front of an orchestra,’ when your job is to be the conductor. You picked this role, so you have to own that responsibility.

As an engineer, though, you’re also part of the orchestra. If something is going wrong and you don’t speak up, the whole piece suffers. Imagine the woodwinds are half a beat off! Even if your section is perfect, it’s going to sound bad. And the woodwinds? They’ll feel terrible, because they might not even realize they’re out of sync until it’s too late.

A lot of engineers think, ‘If my work is good, that should be enough.’ But in leadership roles, you have to be able to escalate and raise issues at the right moment. You don’t need to speak all the time. Constant talking isn’t influencing others. But silence in key decision moments is a disservice to your team and yourself.

One trick I suggest for introverts is to deliberately change your ‘meeting persona’ for a while. If you’re usually the quiet one, try being the provocateur for a month. Ask the uncomfortable question. Play devil’s advocate.

It’s not about changing who you are. It’s about breaking how people perceive you. You want to get out of the box. Because influence isn’t just what you know, it’s when and how you show it.”

Fun Questions

Now let’s pivot to some fun questions. What’s the funniest or most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen listed on FB Marketplace?

“Definitely the raw chicken teddy bear. Someone took raw chicken and shaped it into a teddy bear. The head, arms, everything. It was disturbing and hilarious at the same time.

What’s your go-to comfort food after a brutal day at work?

“Soup. I love ramen, udon, and noodles. I’m a big soup noodle person. So are my kids. But my husband is not a fan. We have been married for 25 years, and there are still some things that we can’t quite get on the same page about.

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Thank you, Deb, for sharing! My takeaways:

1. Short-term career thinking is a trap: If you’re managing your career around the next performance review, you’re playing the wrong game. Deb argues for thinking in 2–5 year arcs: What skills will my future self need? What experiences will open the doors I want later? Sometimes that means taking the less glamorous role today so you’re ready for the bigger leap tomorrow.

2. Family choices have clear trade-offs. We can’t pretend that taking time for family, whether it’s having kids, caring for aging parents, or stepping back from travel, doesn’t slow career momentum. Deb is blunt about this: the impact is real. But that doesn’t make it the wrong choice. It just means you need to acknowledge the trade-offs and plan for how you’ll rebuild speed when you’re ready.

3. Speak up, or you might be doing others a disservice. Treat speaking up like playing in an orchestra: you don’t have to play every note, but when your section comes in, you’d better be heard. Speaking up at the right time isn’t self-promotion. It’s advocating for your team, your customers, and the work that matters.

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