Instagram’s sixth employee, Amy Cole, signed on to be the company’s first Head of Business, and she’s credited with finding the company’s first windowed office. Like Jessica Zollman, it was Cole’s enthusiasm about the product that led to contact with the founders and, eventually, a job on the team. Before Instagram, Cole worked with carmaker Chrysler as an aerodynamic development engineer. Cole is still employed by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, but her JD has changed. According to her LinkedIn, she now works as the Director of Product Marketing for messaging app WhatsApp.
After Cole, Instagram’s next recruit was Gregor Hocmuth, who served as an engineer and product manager but was first approached by Systrom to come on board as co-founder. He made some of the earliest filters and remained with the company through its acquisition by Facebook. Hocmuth left the team in 2014 and has since worked on a range of art and tech projects. His last known project was a live TV app called Dreams, but his LinkedIn reveals that he’s currently the Senior Software Engineer at Midjourney, an AI-powered research lab.
Tim VanDamme joined Instagram in January 2012 as a Product Designer and left about one year later to join Dropbox. VanDamme has since worked for many companies, but his profession has stayed the same. He’s worked at Abstract, a San Francisco-based design firm, and Gowalla, a location-based networking platform that was also acquired by Facebook, as a Product Designer, and now holds the same role at Figma, according to his LinkedIn.
Philip McAllister was hired around the same time as Tim VanDamme, and he also served at Gowalla, although his tenure was earlier than Van Damme’s. He joined Instagram as an Android developer only four months before the company was acquired but stayed on the team to become the Director of Engineering, a position he held for eight years. He still works in the same role, but now for the parent company, Meta, overseeing the business’ foray into digital commerce.
