You’re really overthinking this. PIPs suck, but they happen. Many factors could lead to them. It wasn’t a fit at that time, with that company, with that team, with you. It doesn’t say anything about you or your performance. You got PIP’ed once, so I wouldn’t worry that you’re not a fit for that type of company or anything else. I’d focus on getting that next role, then you could lean on the Taro community for optimizing how you navigate it.

Also, don’t reveal that you were PIP’ed. It’s irrelevant. Your previous company won’t reveal it due to fear of lawsuit. They’ll just confirm your employment. Don’t overthink this.

Nvidia

Mid-Level Software Engineer [IC2]

I've found getting patents to be completely orthogonal to software work. The best way to learn how to do them at your company is to work on one. If you have engineers on your team who would be willing to have you help out with the patent, then you should definitely offer to do help as much as you can. In theory, this would be worth it for the experience alone, but it's possible they may decline (depending on how your company incentivizes patents and their personal incentives) since taking your help would almost certainly necessitate putting you on the patent. If it doesn't, then you could offer your help without being named an inventor since you're learning via this experience.

While I agree with Alex that there's little reason for most software engineers to go after patents, if you choose to do so, that's the path I'd take: getting experience and mentorship by someone who has several patents. If you can't find someone willing to accept help with a patent, then learning about the ones your teammates put out and coming up with ideas could also be helpful. You can see what your teammates think of your patent ideas. They may help you refine them, give you a sense of direction, and possible suggest you go forward with an idea eventually (and they'll almost certainly help, so you'll get mentorship here too). Keep in mind that even if your patent is filed by Legal, it'll likely be 12-18 months before any conditional patent is available via public search and years before it's approved. And it'll be the company's patent, though you'll be listed as an inventor.

Definitely consider your motivation before you go through this process though. It's a good amount of work that's unrelated to your work, and you won't advance your career this way (unless you're going somewhere where patents are the norm, e.g. some research scientist roles).