Mid-Level Software Engineer [SW2] at Intuit

I'm in the onboarding phase. I was assigned a starter task and have been working on it. I haven’t done the work of asking questions on design choices (that part is pending).

I want to be ramped up after a week and am wondering how to spend the time. Should I go in-depth on overall architecture? Or spend time working on the codebase? Or is there something else I should do?

I'm on the earlier side of mid-level with around ~2 years of experience. I just wanted to get some overall thoughts from senior engineers that are more seasoned than me: What are the main things to grow from mid-level to senior?

What's some good high-level advice to start progressing to senior engineer?

I feel like everyone's talking about getting into FAANG all the time, and I've been thinking about it as well since I haven't worked at a FAANG company yet. I see people with really short stints on their resume - Is that really okay? Overall, it's all a lot to take in and I'm just wondering how to best think about my career and get away from all this job switching noise.

How can I deal with all the anxiety thinking about job switching?

Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. Intuit's products include TurboTax, Mint, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp.

Intuit

Mid-level Engineer [SW2]

- Focus on crushing your starter task and picking up as many small wins as you can.
- I wouldn't view asking questions on design choices as a substantial supplemental task: I think it should be a behavior that's naturally weaved in as you're processing code. If you have questions on why things are written in a certain way, ask your team immediately!
- Ramp-up isn't a binary process: It's a big spectrum. Of course, as a mid-level engineer, you need to get good productivity quickly and do the bulk of your ramping up within the first 1-2 months. But I think reaching true 100% productivity can take 3-6 months. Just something to keep in mind - Don't be too hard on yourself if you're still missing things 3 months in!
- I don't expect mid-level engineers to have a huge impact on technical direction, especially newer ones on a team. I would focus on building a very strong proficiency with the codebase. Landing new high-quality code into your team's codebase quickly should feel like breathing to you within the next month or so.

Zooming out, I recommend talking more with your manager and TL to figure out what the longer-term horizons are for you. From there, you can work backwards on what's best for you to do. For example, let's say the plan for your next 3 months is to deliver a big project in a specific part of the codebase. You can start preparing for that now by finding relevant stakeholders in that codebase, going through that code, etc.

Lastly, I recommend going through this [onboarding checklist](https://link.jointaro.com/18FepHAZJakeVtUi9) I shared with a new engineer that started at Google. I think a lot of it can apply to your situation as well.

Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero, PayPal

Alex Chiou

Mid-level engineers have very strong technical proficiency, able to execute on small to medium-sized projects with minimal hand-holding, leveling up from junior engineers.

With how often software engineers change teams, it's crucial to be efficient at this. Learn how to get coding within a new codebase fast, build the proper relationships, and hit the ground running in general.

How can I best spend my time ramping up?

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Intuit