Instacart Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

Building off my question on , I'm curious what the daily schedules of people at Taro look like. I know that this will differ a lot from person to person (e.g. Charlie is coding and Rahul is doing business) and from day to day. Still, if there is a most-common day (the "mode" of days), I'd love to know what that's like, perhaps at the half hour of granularity (just a suggestion, feel free to provide whatever you want). Alternatively, if you prefer to provide what your schedule was like in Big Tech, that'd also be great to know!

Like my focus block question, my motivation here is learning how the highest performers function at a granular level. I can't physically shadow people for a day, but this is the next best thing, and allows me to see how productivity, health, and personal time come together.

I know this is a somewhat personal question, but any details you're comfortable sharing are good to know!

Thanks!

I'm going through In the lesson on , Alex talks about the value of long uninterrupted periods. Notably, he says that a focus block should be minimum 4 hours.

This got me thinking, what do these 4 hours (or longer) look like? Is it 4 hours sitting down uninterrupted at your desk? Is it 4 hours broken up by getting up every 30-60 minutes to grab a snack or chat with a colleague at the office? Do short walks outside () fit in them?

I'm not trying to be annoying or nerd-snipe, I just want to know what the nitty-gritty behaviour of the world's most productive software engineers looks like :)

For me, I feel like I have a mild case of ADD, so if I score a victory, minor or major, in my code, I get up and do a quick meditation, use the washroom, and/or stretch after ~30 minutes, but my hunch is more productive people sit uninterrupted for longer.

I just got an email from my alma mater, the University of Toronto. They're letting me know they are shutting down my old email address, "@mail.utoronto.ca". They are offering to give me a new email account that ends with "@".

I don't foresee myself ever needing this alumni university account. I haven't used my old uni account much in the 6 years since I graduated. Still, the thought occurred to me, could it ever be valuable to have a different account other than my personal gmail one? I suppose if I graduated from a world-renowned school like Harvard or Stanford there would be a more compelling reason to keep an alumni account - after all, that carry status no matter what stage of career you're in. In my case, U of T does have some clout (it's generally considered a Top 20 school and is the largest school in Canada), but not enough that I ever think I'll use it again.

Does anyone have thoughts on using email accounts in general and on my situation in particular?

Thanks!

My onboarding buddy is getting a business phone for email + slack. He says it's important for keeping good WLB and mental health.

Is this standard practice?

I'm a lifelong Windows user, with a bit of Linux/Ubuntu experience as well. Now that I'm at a Big Tech company, I'm using Mac. I feel like all the Big Tech companies use Mac. Does anyone have tips for getting adjusted? Big important things to know would be great.

Here's my first idea: instead of using my Windows keyboard, I'm going to use the MacBook as my primary display and therefore use the mac keyboard as my keyboard. This will force me to use the native mac keys (Command, Option, etc) rather than the Windows equivalents.

Thanks!

EDIT: after spending a day on Mac, I think I got the hang of it. It's not too different, some of the key combos are different, but I think that's about it.

I'm halfway through and am wondering if his advice in the course changes given that I'm on a contract 6-months to start. What triggered this thought was he says in the video that you should consider yourself "Fully Onboarded" by Month 6 (and therefore take more time before asking questions). Since my contract is 6-months to start, I imagine I should strive especially hard to onboard quickly, but that the advice in the course doesn't really change. There are, after all, human limits to how quickly you can onboard and those don't change whether you're FTE or on contract to start. I believe my situation might be closer to that of an intern. So maybe I should go through ?

Appreciate the feedback!

I just had my last date at my (now former) job. I'm set to start at Instacart next week. Whoot!

I'm wondering if I can/should ask to push back my start date by a week. The reasons to do so are:

1. I get 2 weeks of vacation to relax before I start my job. I'd like to do a bit of travel before I start and the extra week would be huge. I won't have 2 weeks of vacation for a long time, so it's a lot.
2. I get more time to beef up on stuff I should know coming into my job.

While I would very much like to ask, I'm inclined not to. Here's why:

1. I'm starting on contract with a fellow contractor and I believe that peer just started today. One week behind him is prob better than 2
2. The contract I signed goes until late December, so I'm not sure they can push back that date even if my start date is pushed back.
3. I kinda already agreed to the start date.

When it comes to negotiating pay, the rule is it doesn't hurt to ask. I know that and benefited from it! But in this case, I'm concerned it does hurt to ask as I don't want to seem unenthusiastic about the job or not looking forward to starting or someone whose word is unreliable.

What do people think? Should I ask or just chin up and bear it?

Thanks!

I'll be starting at Instacart in a couple weeks as an L4 Data Engineer on contract for 6 months to start. I'm coming from a finance company where things move slowly. I was a high performer in my department while regularly working 3 hours a day or less. Much of my time spent at my old job was dedicated towards finding my new job - applying, interviewing, taking courses, etc.

I know I will encounter a culture shock when I start at IC and want to prepare myself as much as possible for it. Mentally, I am taking the approach that I will put in a solid full-day, 8 hours of work every day and perhaps work some weeknights and weekends as well, although I'd like to minimize the need to do that by being effective and prioritizing work during my regular work hours.

In terms of preparation, from Taro I have gleaned that there are 2 main areas I should be focusing on:

1. Code Quality and Velocity

2. Communication

For 1), I have bookmarked on the topic and plan on doing it before I start working. For 2), I have bookmarked and likewise plan on finishing the course before starting work. I actually plan on doing Rahul's Onboarding Course before Alex's Code Course.

Is there anything else I should be aware of? I have gone through already as well as looked over these threads:

I imagine the advice for me is virtually identical to the above threads, but if there's anything I'm missing, please fill me in!

Thanks!!

I know that moving companies is very powerful in terms of compensation and learning new things. However, I'm wondering if it's still effective in the context of trying to get to the highest engineering execution levels like director or VP?