Building Relationships Q&A and Videos

I am trying apply to companies via referrals by reaching out to people on LinkedIn who work there already. Some people give me a yes but never get back after that. I understand that it's a transaction, but I don't know what value i could offer them in return for a referral? Or how I could get them interested in referring me?

Any tips?

Thanks!

I’ve gone through Taro's courses on communication and asking questions, which were insightful, especially in showing how juniors can learn from senior engineers with deep expertise. However, as an MLE, I face different challenges and would appreciate some insights or thoughts from Alex or Rahul.

For context, I majored in math and hold an MS in ML from a top 3 university, so I'd say I have a solid grasp of both the mathematical and practical aspects of ML. Machine Learning can be deeply mathematical, often requiring formal training to fully get it. Some SWEs who transition into MLE roles may lack this foundation, and while they might have been excellent SWEs, the gap in math knowledge can hinder their abilities as MLEs.

Here are a few challenges I face with some SWE-to-MLE seniors:

1. Sometimes, my tech lead asks questions that suggest a lack of understanding of ML basics. While directly correcting them doesn’t seem right, what’s the best way to handle this?
2. This becomes a bigger issue when they set project goals that are mathematically infeasible. Without a strong math background, they rely on intuition, making it hard to guide them away from misguided directions.
3. Their informal grasp of ML can also complicate design documents by introducing unnecessary features that don’t align with the project’s objectives.
4. As seniors, they can get defensive and dismiss alternative ideas, which is frustrating, especially when I would need to work on a project with a high risk of failing.

It's easy building relationships within your own team but how do you build relationships across other teams whom you do not work with on a daily basis?

Hey everyone! I’m looking for some advice on how to make our meetups more engaging and valuable for everyone who attends. Sometimes we don’t have a clear topic, and while the conversations are fun, they can feel a bit repetitive or improvised. Maybe having some structure or an agenda would be helpful, or do you think improvisation works well too? What are your thoughts?

I’d love to make sure everyone gets the most out of their time and leaves feeling like it was worth attending. Any tips on how to keep the conversation fresh, structured, and meaningful would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

Hi everyone, for next 6 months, I will most probably be working on projects which are C/C heavy. For example, project may involve discussing things with A and B teams, finding an engineering design from the abstractions the teams are using and execute it. There might not be much complex items from code perspective and execution may look simple.

While projects like these would give me good credits in terms of cross-team collaboration and communication, I want to be technically competent. Looking back after next 6 months, I don't want to feel bad that from code/eng perspective, I didn't do anything complex.

I understand that probably I should ask my manager for complex/craft heavy item, probably at least once per half but I see some engineers in queue for promotion so there is no guarantee for that.

Any suggestion from the community would help a lot. Thanks!

The launch of a new AI-based hardware product, Friend, went viral yesterday on Twitter/X:

Most of the reactions I saw online have been very negative. The common complaint is that Friend creates a dystopian future of companionship with intrusive technology.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

• "Friend" is a wearable pendant around your neck that ""
• Friend connects to your phone via Bluetooth and tries to develop a personality based on listening to what you say and do.
• It costs $99 and the product is ~6 months out: pre-orders start shipping in Q1 2025.
• The video on Twitter has been viewed 22M times! That's good marketing.

I'll share my thoughts first.

I just finished my first week at my first Big Tech company. I onboarded with another engineer who I'm working closely with on a series of projects. That engineer was really helpful to me this week in getting my environment set up. He knows the tools and frameworks we'll be using a lot better than I do so I'm really grateful he's around to help me. I've thanked him a lot on Slack privately and on our video calls. I'd like to publicly thank him on the company directory. My concern is that if I do that, our manager might see me as the weaker engineer of the two (which I am right now).

Should I let that stop me from publicly thanking him?

Thanks in advance!

My team has 1 E5 iOS (me), 1 E5 Android, 1 E4 iOS, 1 E4 Android, and several backend engineers. We also have a few web engineers, but I don't work with them.

I optimize for quality even if it takes more time, while my E4 iOS optimizes for speed (often cutting corners, skimping on testing, neglecting edge cases, etc.). My E5 Android's quality is somewhere in the middle of my E4 iOS's and mine, but he takes a lot longer than me on comparable tasks.

My E5 Android tends to push tasks onto others, with the excuse that he "doesn't have time". For example, our team's manager wanted our mobile engineers to learn the backend, so she specifically assigned a backend task to the E5 Android engineer. However, in a 1:1, the Android engineer asked me to take that backend task "if I have time" -- I had finished my iOS tasks early, so I technically had time, but I was hoping to work on a side project to demonstrate E6 scope. When I mentioned that I didn't have time because I was writing a 1-pager, he asked me to share it with him. Then he said we should focus on finishing our existing projects before starting new ones and added a lot of negative comments to my 1-pager, which made it more difficult for me to get buy-in from other engineers.

My team's EM had told me I could DRI a particular project I was excited about. However, the E5 Android convinced our PM that we should finish existing projects before starting new ones, so they forced me to deprioritize the project I was excited about to work on some boring E4 tasks. My E4 iOS was busy with another project, so he didn't have the bandwidth to take those tasks. However, I was hoping the E4 could take those E4 tasks after he finished his current project.

Do you have an tips on how to navigate this? I get the impression that the E5 Android pushes a lot of tasks onto the E4 Android as well, based on the latter's annoyed look in meetings when it happens.

My team will start our H2 scoping soon. Apparently the E5 Android engineer already set expectations with my team's EM that Android will take a lot longer than iOS for that project that I'll DRI.