After more than 15 years at Meta, Ming Hua has learned a thing or two about how to succeed in fast-moving, innovative environments.

As the Vice President of Wearables Devices, Ming leads the team responsible for developing technology like Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses, Meta Ray-Ban Display and Meta Neural Band.

“One of the coolest parts of leading a portfolio is the opportunity to work with many different cross-functional partners and top talents in the field. I get to work with world class researchers and learn from them how they craft a research thesis and validate and prototype so that we can make progress. At the same time, working with the in-market devices team, I get to work with a really great go-to-market team, so I learned so many marketing skills: How can we tell the story to the consumers, and how can we also get market signals so that we can improve the products. Being able to work with people across the board and also seeing what happens in different types of portfolios helps us pattern match and also be more strategic about how to do things better for future products.”

However, the path to her current role has been years in the making — filled with career pivots and big bets on her ability to adapt to new challenges. Along the way, Ming has discovered a few key mindset shifts that have helped her grow into the leader she is today.

Lean into your strengths and get hands-on

Ming started her journey at Meta in 2009 as the engineering director for local and business platforms. That experience helped her get familiar with technologies like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. When transitioning into wearables, she used her prior background to get up to speed quickly in her new role.

“When I first started working on wearables, all the hardware and embedded systems were new to me. I chose to work on building WhatsApp on wearables so I could lean on what I knew, which is the WhatsApp product experience and the relationship I have with the WhatsApp team from my prior role. This allowed me to make meaningful contributions while gradually learning the wearables-specific challenges I didn’t know, like how to improve Bluetooth connectivity or save battery life.”

Ming refers to this as finding a "minimally viable ramp-up project.” She believes getting hands-on quickly and immersing yourself in your new role is a great way to build confidence and gain experience, regardless of whether or not you’re leading a team.

“It is hard to dive into a new area. The one thing I find useful for me is to always find the minimal viable ramp up projects. It is small in scope, but very specific and deep, and really tells you the core of this new area. So that you can take the minimal ramp up time and start diving in by really building, you can start to get the gist of it and really get the fun of building and build up your confidence from there, no matter if you are joining as an individual contributor role or leadership role, I think getting hands on and getting to the specific quickly is a really good way to build your connection with the field and also with your team.”

Another benefit to exploring multiple fields is that it teaches you to identify patterns and break complex problems down into fundamental truths. This kind of thinking is especially important when building first-of-its-kind technology.

Broaden your perspective on innovation

The other key to Ming’s success at Meta has been taking a long-term view on innovation, looking ahead to anticipate what kinds of solutions will be needed in the future.

“We dedicate specific teams to different time horizons in our portfolio. For example, our research and new technology introduction team explores tech that’s a few years out and hasn’t been done before. Take the Orion AR glasses we demoed in 2024. They use silicon carbide as the waveguide material, which is the result of a multi-year effort to research, test and perfect the technology.”

At the same time, Ming argues, you also have to focus on the quality of product experiences today. She oversees separate teams that iterate on customer feedback to continuously guide improvements and expand Meta technologies into new use cases. Ming and her teammates are always looking for potential ways to support different groups of people with wearables.

“A really big part is to learn from our passionate internal customers. We have a very heavy dog fooding culture, so a lot of those cool accessibility features are ideas from the internal dog fooders. One of the engineers brought up the idea of doing integration with the Be My Eyes community, so that people can use the glasses as a way to talk to volunteers and get things done. In thinking of those ideas, we want to make sure we're not only looking at the broad and reach of the product feature, but also the depth and the depth of engagement and how much it is meaningful to people. So by combining both, we're able to think about how to build more features that reach different parts of the community.”

Leaders never stop learning

Ultimately, Ming believes that one of the hallmarks of leadership is understanding there’s always more to learn. Even now, she still looks for opportunities to expand her skills when collaborating with other teams.

“When I switched from engineering to product, I asked one of my mentors for advice on how to deliver compelling product narratives. She recommended a great book that helped hone my storytelling abilities and taught me how to land my point. I also took a class on communication design that taught me how to speak the same language as my cross-functional design partners.”

As AI grows and evolves, Ming looks forward to discovering how the next generation of builders and leaders will create wearables that help people enhance their senses and break down communication barriers.