Name: [Case Study] Hypercharging Your Growth At Early Startups (w/ Staff Engineer Seed Zeng)
Uploaded: 2022-11-05
Duration: 59 min 58 s
Description: Click here for the presentation slides

[Case Study] Hypercharging Your Growth At Early Startups (w/ Staff Engineer Seed Zeng)

[Click here for the presentation slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZocNUZJL-feWAKoucVLUcaVxix2Xa1udEL4KpgQRBTo/edit?usp=sharing).

There are a *ton* of great points covered in this session, so we'll only share our Top 5:
- **Startups have massive scope** - In an early-stage startup, there is always an infinite supply of hard, technically deep problems. This allows you to have a lot of freedom choosing an opportunity that works well for you and build up a wide breadth of important skills. This is almost always *not* the case in Big Tech - [Check out this expert career advice on the difference between Big Tech and startups when it comes to learning](https://link.jointaro.com/n57gbTWERveGTQuM9).
- **Don't say "I'm not qualified to work on this"** - The best software engineers are able to adapt to any situation their team faces and add value regardless of what framework or tech stack is needed. In order to do that, you must first flip this fearful mentality. [Here's our masterclass on how to learn quickly in tech](https://link.jointaro.com/S2h95sJvRU8Utjj6A).
- **Don't be afraid to make mistakes** - Recovering from a mistake is one of the most powerful ways to learn, and startups will generally have more tolerance for mistakes as stakes are lower compared to a more mature, massive public company where product issues can make the news. [Here's our advice on how to maximize your growth from mistakes](https://link.jointaro.com/THof1u97Z5t1ovCr9).
- **80% of the journey is just showing up** - Seek out important, complex situations and run towards them instead of away from them, especially with production issues. If you're earlier-in-career, you can learn a lot simply by being a participant in fixing these fires; from there, you can make yourself a core driver more and more. [Here's our advice on how you can be more independent debugging tricky technical problems](https://link.jointaro.com/xE8oMpCaDYjuMhCg7).
- **It's all about the people** - Your career growth is largely a product of the people you surround yourself with, and this is especially true in a startup where the team is small, bonds are deep, and everybody knows each other. [Here's our advice on how to network effectively within a company](https://link.jointaro.com/Hr1nr53D7sfQAEv3A).

To see (and hear) more from Seed:
- [Connect with him on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/seedzeng/)
- [Check out his podcast "Superposition"](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL3N1cGVycG9zaXRpb25zaG93L2ZlZWQueG1s?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjot6up4Zf7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en)

Related resources:
- [Session #6 - Maximizing SWE Growth: Ownership and Specialization At Startups](https://link.jointaro.com/2ZevbN54MPZPTocH8)
- ["What's the difference between Big Tech and startups in terms of learning and growth?"](https://link.jointaro.com/n57gbTWERveGTQuM9)

A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model.

Recordings of the regular sessions available exclusively to Taro Premium members where we break down key engineering success stories and more!

Staff engineers are extremely vital to any engineering team, viewing the landscape from the overall team charter level instead of individual projects.

Tech has so much to learn, making learning how to learn one of the most important things for any software engineer to do. Figure out what you need to do to pick up new skills quickly and properly.