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Design Doc Creation Independence Bar clarification

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Mid-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community6 days ago

I believe I’m mid-level, as I’m handling low-level design and implementing a new backend pattern based on my performance testing, which led to an architectural change. My manager also had me present to other tech leads in the company, showing recognition of my work.

I’m tackling ambiguity in integrating this pattern with technical and business concepts and volume considerations. To ensure thoroughness, I’m scheduling design reviews with senior engineers, creating diagrams and documentation, and exploring multiple approaches.

For Tier 1 L4 readiness, is it expected that I be correct in design discussions, or is the focus more on my thought process and initiative?

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Discussion

(4 comments)
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    Engineer @ Robinhood
    6 days ago

    You're taking initiative (which is a good signal of growth), but you seem to be unclear on how to proceed.

    If you think of everything at once as one goal, excution becomes harder: instead of a path forward, things seems more like a maze. Mazes are disorienting because it's unclear if your movement is bringing you closer or further away. The more you're imagining doing, the larger the maze. The larger the maze, the harder it is to get out. Fortunately for us, we're able to construct our own path and just simply not construct a maze.

    I'd start with: what's the least amount of effort you can do to move the project forward?

    • Is there a simple solution you can start out with that you can iterate on?
    • What is the bare minimum needed to product an artifact for your senior engineer to review (you can probably ask them)?

    Identify these small steps forward and then take them one at a time. You can leverage your senior engineer peers to make sure you're moving in the right direction. Small steps are easy to walk back from: running 50 miles, not so much.

    (Misc note: in the future, it'll really help the small pool of question answerers if you could organize your thoughrs and use simpler wording. Try doing a few proofreading passes to clean things up & run your question through ChatGPT to clean it up).

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      Software Engineer @State Affairs
      6 days ago

      Jonathan! Good spot! I love your way of thinking. The maze analogy really makes sense—I can see how focusing on one clear, small step at a time can help reduce the overwhelm. I'll break things down into actionable steps and reach out to my senior engineer for review on the essentials if I were you.

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      Mid-Level Software Engineer
      Taro Community
      6 days ago

      Just to clarify, is your recommendation to handle edge cases and the low-level design in a step-by-step, iterative way rather than tackling all details upfront?

      I’ve been approaching this by completing a full low-level design first to reduce review thrash later on, but I want to make sure my approach aligns with expectations.

      My understanding is first sweat details, then break the work down, then submit targeted prs one at a time. That's how I have been going about any task in my work so far.

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      Engineer @ Robinhood
      6 days ago

      Your first step is to validate if your approach is acceptable with the miminum amount of effort possible. If edge cases won't change the core design, don't include them & focus on getting your senior engineers to approve the approach.