Tech Career Events for Software Engineers

If you don't have a Taro Premium membership, you can get it at a discount with Grace's special link here: https://www.jointaro.com/r/graceg708/

We'll hold this event on Zoom, and folks who join can split up into breakout rooms to practice DSA with each other, discuss or get feedback from others on their general approaches/job search.

We know that a lot of folks want a mock interview but are unsure/not confident to give one themselves, so we highly recommend using the resources here to learn how to give mock interviews:

• [Masterclass] How To Be An Amazing Interviewer In Tech
• Meta Software Engineer Interview Question Breakdown: Finding Unique Integers
• Meta Software Engineer Onsite Interview Question Breakdown: K-Closest Points

Honestly, a lot of the value for giving a mock interviewer is just being a responsive human on the other side. No need to be a super DSA genius to give a proper mock interview!

We also recently launched Taro networking! Your mock interview journey doesn't have to end here - Use this platform to find other folks to mock interview with in the future: https://www.jointaro.com/networking/

More details here: https://taropremium.slack.com/archives/C03N2PNJK99/p1696626952479179

Additionally, each student will receive a complimentary Taro Premium membership ($400 value) to expand their network and stay connected with course members.

About Igor

I am a senior engineering leader who derives immense satisfaction from assembling high-performing teams to deliver exceptional products. My experience spans diverse environments, including startups (with teams ranging from 2 to 300 people), mid-sized companies like Zoox, Netflix, and Snapchat, as well as industry giants such as Google, Meta, Samsung, and Motorola.

With 13 years as an engineer and 6 years as a manager, I've acquired a deep understanding of the distinctions between bad, good, and great engineering leaders. I am eager to assist you in becoming one of the latter.

More about my career and vision:

• LinkedIn profile
• Interview on YouTube

Course content

This course consists of 6 hours of live classes, sessions from 5:30pm - 7:00pm PT on the following days: December 5, December 7, December 12, and December 14. You'll receive calendar invites after enrolling.

Session 1: What makes a great engineering manager, and should I become one?

• Review the right and wrong reasons for aspiring to be an engineering manager.
• Identify key areas to focus on when transitioning from an individual contributor (IC) to an engineering manager (EM).
• Explore the strengths that need to be developed.
• Collaborate in groups to discuss personal inspirations and strategies for achieving them.
• Discuss the primary responsibilities of great managers and how to fulfill them.
• Examine the core behaviors that managers should cultivate and how to love this job.

Session 2: The Manager's Path: What Do Great Managers Do?

• How to establish a team's culture, hire the right people, develop the talent, and determine when to let people go.
• What is the right team structure and when/how to perform re-orgs.
• Explore fundamental concepts of coaching and providing feedback to team members.
• Discuss performance management and essential team leadership rituals, including planning, 1:1 meetings, and team gatherings.
• Learn strategies to ensure team happiness, satisfaction, and motivation.
• Discuss methods for supporting team members at different career/performance stages and enthusiasm levels.
• Work in groups to develop a vision and strategy for building a self-sufficient team.

Session 3: Common Mistakes & Misconceptions

• Break into small groups to discuss common mistakes observed by managers.
• Receive insights into my top mistakes and advice on how to avoid them.
• Explore the development of trust within a team, particularly in challenging situations, such as overcoming past leadership issues.
• Cover important aspects of a manager's career, including reorganizations, team composition, and managing upwards.
• Discuss effective approaches for supporting individuals with a cynical or challenging disposition.
• Conclude with a review of top leadership books.

Session 4: Practical Scenarios: Situations Great Leaders Often Face

• Dedicate the final day to hands-on practice in small groups.
• Work on day-to-day activities, including conducting 1:1 meetings, facilitating constructive feedback sessions, and resolving interpersonal conflicts.
• Simulate the effective onboarding of a new engineer into the team's culture.
• Hold a constructive and inclusive technical discussion meeting.
• Conclude the course by addressing interview approaches, selecting the best candidates, and effectively closing the hiring process.

In addition:

• In the middle of our course we will have the Ask Me Anything session with an Engineering Director from Disney
• After each live session concludes, Igor will stay with the class for an additional 30 minutes to answer any and all questions.
• After the course concludes, Igor will do a free 1:1 coaching session for each student.

If you have further questions about this course, please email to: igor.podkhodov@gmail.com

After enrolling, you will receive:

• Calendar invites to each of the 4 sessions.
• A code to redeem one year of Taro Premium if you're not part of it.
• An invitation to the exclusive Slack channel with other course attendees.

If you don't have a Taro Premium membership, you can get it at a discount with Ryan's special link here: https://www.jointaro.com/r/ryanwiens/

This is interactive webinar on Successful Disagreement for Software Engineers.

This session is designed exclusively for non-native English-speaking software engineers to enhance their communication skills, especially in situations of disagreement.

Ryan Alexander Wiens, an experienced English communication coach who has worked with more than 70 SWEs, will lead you through the nuances of expressing disagreement in a constructive and respectful manner. With years of coaching under his belt, Ryan understands the challenges faced by engineers when English is not their first language.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• The importance of 'healthy disagreement' in the tech industry.
• Cultural considerations when expressing dissent.
• Practical strategies for softening disagreement without losing assertiveness.
• Techniques to express and support your opinion.
• Phrases that can be used to articulate disagreement diplomatically.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the phases of a diplomatic disagreement.
• Interactive exercises including breakout rooms and real-time Q&A.
• A phrase bank for participants to use in their daily communications.
• Practice scenarios on common workplace topics for SWEs.

Don't miss this opportunity to refine your diplomatic skills and navigate disagreements with confidence and tact.

Send Ryan a message on LinkedIn if there are particular scenarios you'd like to see in this session: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-wiens/

If you don't have a Taro Premium membership, you can get it at a discount with Vic's special link here: https://www.jointaro.com/r/vickys657/

Building a real world AI enabled application should not be that hard. Leverage a lightweight SDK such as the open source Semantic Kernel to build, connect, integrate your application with multiple data sources and external dependencies to WOW your audience. In this talk, we will introduce the concept of AI orchestration, why you need one, and how to leverage one. We will demo a copilot application that will "talk" to your known applications such as M365 or Jira.

• How the front-end was designed across the iOS and Android Taro apps
• How the back-end Taro calls was built by Sentiyen and tailored to fit Taro's use-case
• The edge cases and overall system design challenges of building this product

To learn more about front-end (Android, iOS, web) system design, check out Alex's master series here: System Design Masterclass: Taro Playlists

If you don't have TaroGPT yet, you can get it here:

• Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.randomappsinc.techcareergrowth
• iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/taro-ai-gpt-career-coach-chat/id1605094641

Greg Benson is the Director of Engineering at Disney Streaming.

Previously, he was the Engineering manager at Google, where he worked from 2017 - 2021. Prior to that, he was a manager at Netflix.

In this Ask Me Anything (AMA), Greg will answer all your questions about growing in an Engineering management career! Some of the topics Greg can address are:

• Why should or shouldn't I become an EM?

• How did you grow from IC into EM?

• What were the unexpected things after transitioning into EM?

• Which qualities are the most important for EM?

• How do I become a better manager?

• Which managers are promoted?

• What do engineering directors expect from their reports?

• What to discuss during skip-level 1:1s with your director?

This AMA is part of the cohort-based course "How to Become a Great Manager" which starts Dec 5, but all Taro Premium members are invited to join this session.

Join the Taro community using Casey's link here: https://www.jointaro.com/r/caseyd290/

In this #taro-bookclub discussion, we'll go over Chapter 11 of "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann. This chapter is about stream processing, covering topics like:

• Transmitting event streams
• Databases and streams
• Processing Streams

Here's the agenda:

• We’ll break down and discuss the key concepts from Chapter 11.
• There will also be time for any questions and answers you might have.

Please send your questions ahead of time to Karen Zapata in the Taro Premium Slack, so that they can be included in the discussion.

Get ready for another engaging and informative session!

Join Grace in the Taro community using her referral link 🎉

After nearly 3 years at a Series B startup, Grace experienced one of many wild ways a startup dies. She used her unemployment as a time to reflect and regenerate herself. Grace shares her candid perspective on interviewing, and regardless of season, how it can be used for self-development and growth.

• How Rahul thought about money management with an $800K total comp
• How to develop and monetize side projects without conflicts of interest with 9-5 jobs?
• [Masterclass] Understanding And Optimizing Your Pay In Tech

Also happy to share honest thoughts and feedback on well-known accelerators: Y Combinator, PearX, TechStars

What you get:

• Hear ideas from other ambitious engineers to make your own idea/pitch better.
• Taro (this platform!) is a YC-funded startup from S22. Rahul can share thoughts about how Taro got in and what he learned.
• Rahul has personally reviewed and recommended 10+ companies that have gotten funding and launched their product.

Resources to take a look at:

• [Taro Top 10] Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups
• Alex answering "How did you decide to quit your job and make a startup?"
• How can H1B (visa) holders do a startup?
• How To Prepare To Leave Big Tech For A Startup
• Taro at YC's Demo Day (Summer 2022)

This session will not be recorded. Group Office Hours are a communal way to get the personalized career advice you need.

Casey is the Founder of Expanded Skills, a provider of tech leadership training and consulting for experienced engineering practitioners.

Over the past decade, Casey has taken an unconventional approach to career growth. Entering the tech industry with a non-traditional background, Casey went on to become Head of Engineering at two F500 companies.

Casey’s Background:

• Finance at P&G worked on a 9-figure product portfolio straight out of school

• Engagement Manager at Accenture, first data scientist in Canada’s Innovation Hub

• Top-rated instructor at Brainstation, the first to teach their AI/ML curriculum

• Head of Engineering at two F500 companies, scaled teams and helped 100s of engineers grow their careers

• Currently building Expanded Skills to help others grow their careers while staying aligned with the work they enjoy.

Casey’s Recent Talks on Engineering Leadership

• Hard and soft skills of a good EM

• Making the Transition From Individual Contributor to Manager

Casey's Talk on Navigating Pivotal Points In Your Tech Career on Taro

Casey's Responses to Community Questions on Taro

Casey’s LinkedIn

Course Overview

This course consists of 6 hours of live classes, sessions from 5:30pm - 7:00pm PT / 8:30 - 10:00pm ET on the following 4 days:

• Tuesday, January 16, 2024

• Thursday, January 18, 2024

• Tuesday, January 23, 2024

• Thursday, January 25. 2024

Additionally, on Saturday, January 20, 10:00am - 11:00am PT / 1:00pm - 2:00pm ET, Casey will host an AMA Office Hours. Attendance is optional.

Over the span of 2 weeks, we’ll cover:

Section 1: Demystify Engineering Leadership

• Understand how the “rules of the game” change at various career levels

• Adaptations needed to your mindset and skillsets when moving into engineering leadership

• Build a gameplan around what companies value in engineering leaders

Section 2: Spot Opportunities Worth Pursuing

• Learn the characteristics of high-impact opportunities

• Gain exposure to engineering leadership problems early in your career

• Evaluate tradeoffs and make interventions that have a lasting impact

Section 3: Make Quality Decisions Under Uncertainty

• Avoid common pitfalls when making strategic decisions

• Apply strategic thinking and mental models to navigate ambiguity and complexity

• Understand the core concepts behind a robust decision-making framework

Section 4: Stay Competitive Over A 40+ Year Career

• How to thrive when there are constant changes and chaos in the tech industry

• Identify and develop the fundamentals to future-proof your skillset

• Adopt learning strategies to stay ahead of the curve without burning out

[Bonus] For the first 10 people to enroll, Casey will:

• Personalize your onboarding and suggest optional pre-work so that you can get the maximum value from the course

• Provide a 1-1 coaching session after the course ends to develop a plan for putting the concepts learned into practice

If you have further questions about this course, please email: casey@expandedskills.com

After enrolling, you will receive:

• Calendar invites to each of the 4 sessions.

• A code to redeem one year of Taro Premium if you're not part of it.

• An invitation to the exclusive Slack channel with other course attendees.

Brian is a veteran engineer with 20+ years of experience as a developer, architect, and admin. He previously published one of the top Git courses on Udemy. Brian is a published author and has been chosen as a Microsoft Learning Expert. He frequently leads workshops and speaks at conferences to help developers grow their skills. Brian lives in Iowa and also enjoys singing + songwriting.

More about Brian:

• LinkedIn profile
• [Taro Blog] Git Commands Every Software Engineer Should Know

This course is intended to have value for much longer than the 2 weeks of live sessions. Each student will receive a complementary Taro Premium membership ($400 value) to expand your network and stay connected to course members.

Course Content

This course consists of 6 hours of live classes, sessions from 6:00pm - 7:30pm PT on the following days: January 16, January 18, January 23, and January 25. You'll receive calendar invites after enrolling.

Session 1: GITting Started With GIT

In order to ensure you are set up for success, this first session will review some of the basic fundamentals of GIT. Even though these are fundamentals, if you are used to working with tools like GitKraken, GitHub desktop, SourceTree, or other GIT desktop programs, you may have never had to use any of these commands in the past. We will work through a number of activities to ensure the fundamentals of GIT are mastered. This first session will include:

• Getting your machine set up
  • GIT BASH
  • setting GIT credentials
  • Visual Studio Code (VSCode)
• Basic CLI commands
  • init, add, commit, log, status, reset (soft/mixed)
• Leverage GIT ignore files to keep files from being tracked
• Understanding GIT Decentralized Repositories
• Centralized vs. Decentralized
• Working Directory/Staging/Committing
• Pushing/Pulling Changes
• What is a remote tracking branch?
• Working with Remote Repositories (GitHub): fetch, clone, pull, push, merge

Takeaway: Ability to lead your team through working with GIT in most day-to-day workflow scenarios.

Session 2: Branching and Merging

Working with a team requires creating workflows that will ensure you and your team can work simultaneously on the same codebase without losing work or having to worry about coordinating efforts on specific sections of code. In this session, you'll learn to:

• Create local and remote branches
• Work with pull-requests
• Add settings for default diff and merge tools (VSCode)
• Resolve merge conflicts
• Introduction to GIT Workflows: GIT Flow, Trunk-based development
• Squashing
• Rebasing
• Force Push (with lease)

Any developer should be able to work well with a team and at the end of this session you will be confident in your ability to work with your team.

Takeaway: Ability to work with your team effectively, resolve issues, and create strategy around team workflows.

Session 3: Advanced Commands

As the lead of your team, you will be called upon to solve problems as they arise with your repositories. In this session you'll learn how to work with commands to solve complex scenarios as follows:

Commands: reset (hard), amend, reflog, alias, clean, revert, cherry-pick, stash, interactive rebase

At the end of this session, you'll be very much in command of GIT and have the ability to manipulate your commit history with confidence.

Takeaway: Ability to resolve complex problems with GIT and rewrite history with confidence.

Session 4: Advanced Scenarios

In this final session, you'll get the opportunity to work with GIT to resolve some common complex scenarios. This session will then conclude with some final work around tagging and releases at GitHub.

Scenarios

• Undo a commit to local main
• Remove a commit pushed to main by accident
• Two features ready for merge, remove one and keep one without losing code
• Remove a secret and make it look like it was never there

Additional Work: Tagging a commit, creating a release on GitHub

Takeaway: Lead your team efforts with confidence, and fix the most common mistakes that occur in modern workflow scenarios.

In addition to the live sessions:

• After each session concludes, Brian will stay with the class for an additional 30 minutes to answer any and all questions.
• After the course concludes, Brian is willing to provide custom feedback for your specific workflow and how it may be improved.

After enrolling, you will receive:

• Calendar invites to each of the 4 sessions.
• A code to redeem one year of Taro Premium if you're not part of it.
• An invitation to the exclusive Slack channel with other course attendees.

Also happy to share honest thoughts and feedback on well-known accelerators: Y Combinator, PearX, TechStars

What you get:

• Hear ideas from other ambitious engineers to make your own idea/pitch better.
• Taro (this platform!) is a YC-funded startup from S22. Rahul can share thoughts about how Taro got in and what he learned.
• Rahul has personally reviewed and recommended 10+ companies that have gotten funding and launched their product.

Resources to take a look at:

• [Taro Top 10] Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups
• Alex answering "How did you decide to quit your job and make a startup?"
• How can H1B (visa) holders do a startup?
• How To Prepare To Leave Big Tech For A Startup
• Taro at YC's Demo Day (Summer 2022)

This session will not be recorded. Group Office Hours are a communal way to get the personalized career advice you need.