Junior Engineer Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

My first team didn't work out for me. I was there for less than a year and got the poorest rating, was set up for a PIP. Somehow I made a transfer at the last moment and survived. Certainly, it was the most difficult phase of my life & I am quite grateful to my new team. Now, I'm already in the new team for less than a year and got an average rating last time. The rating was partially influenced by previous manager as I spent almost half of my time there. Currently working on multiple projects at the same time and grabbing almost whatever task is offered and somewhat gained trust I believe. But the quality of those tasks are not too much complex rather modular & takes more time. I can keep on doing this way but not sure what is the right thing to do. The team is relatively new. Recently started a promo discussion humbly and not pushing it. Manager's review is I'm operating at L3.6 now. Now, What might be the mental model to forget the past? Sticking around for almost two years now, what might be the correct time & way to reach Next Level?

In the last month I had 5 companies I interviewed for. I made it to on-site for 2 companies and got rejected after first round for 3 interviews and i'm feeling so lost on how to get better or what I'm doing wrong a series A YC startup: they ghosted me after a first round which was a HM convo about my past experience. Didn't even send an email even after follow up Wayfair associate level role (asking for 1-2 YoE): passed OA. idk what happened i thought it went well but I got rejected after first round. It was a "case interview" for data science. Dont want to leak the exam on public forum but it was something along the lines of they said u have X data, what would you use it for? How to train a model on it? and a lot of follow up questions. I took a mock interview for a system design from interviewing.io and got passed at the mid level so im not sure why i got rejected here. a series B startup: passed OA/takehome. failed on site - 4x rounds (SQL, pandas, coding/pair programming, ML theory) I thought I did fine on everything except the SQL which honestly is not my storng suit. I did ok ok on it. I kinda fumbled on 1 question out of 6 questions of the ML theory round where they asked me a stats question (find sample size needed for calculating significance of an A/B test). But I think I did well on the pandas round and the rest of ML and coding/pair programming. a really really fancy AI startup hiring ML Scientist: I did a 4 hr take home which I passed and then a 5 hour onsite no DSA but really delving into ML research skills and system design and coding. I was totally unqualified for this (they wanted strong research/math skills) so im not surprised here Series B startup: Passed OA and I got rejected after the first interview the moment the HM realized I had 6 mos of experience he ended the interview right there Didnt also make it past the phone screen for 2 companies. I presume they were looking for someone more senior based on the JD

In the video polish your resume in "Ace your tech interview and get a job as a software engineer", Alex mentioned that we should focus on the stack we're the most experienced in and pick a lane. However, in my case, I only have ML experience and do not have specific stack that I am working on, even though I am fluent in .NET Should I put my projects upfront instead of work experience?

I recently graduated with my MS and I'm still job hunting. I'm unfortunately at a point where most of my strengths/impressive accomplishments are in MLE/DS which is Harder to break into at the new grad level Fewer jobs in the market I need a job ASAP and would love advice on how to job search optimally Here is what I'm doing Creating regular content on LinkedIn 1. (I've gotten 3-4 interviews from this), 3 of them were recruiter calls that went nowhere, one was an interview that went to final round Applying to any and every job with < 4 YoE requirement with tailored resumes for verticals (MLE/DS/SWE) 1. I got 2 interviews from this. Unfortunately didnt get either For strong matches, I am trying to arrange coffee chats with managers at the company. 1. This has not worked well at all I've tried getting referrals but it's never resulted in an interview. The strong referrals (where the person sends the resume directly to HM) I get the feedback of some internal red tape (not hiring NG, only return intern, or cannot hire international students) or sometimes they just simply want someone with more experience with a specific area (training models, or a specific framework) Trying to apply to SWE roles as well. But quite frankly since I have just spent most of my time, internships, projects directed at MLE/DS, the SWE tailored version of my resume is not top tier. It's quite average in my opinion I'm not sure what else to be doing or if anything else I can do that I am missing. Any advice would be appreciate! If you can even just share your experience on what works for you/what doesnt work that would be great to hear as well

My team got split up recently, and I got put onto a sub-team I'm less familiar with (I have more context and experience with the other sub-teams formed in this re-org). Any thoughts on how I can make a case to be on one of the teams I feel like is a better fit for me, and if I'm not able to do that, how do I make the most of this new situation?

Hello, I am a software engineer at a hardware startup company in the South Bay Area and live in San Francisco. I make $124K/year and have been at the company for little more than a year (I joined out of college in mid-late 2022). Work-life balance at the company is pretty great (40 hours/week), the company does make exceptions for working remote from other locations from time-to-time (i.e. when you’re traveling) and is generous with PTO (this may change in 2024 as new processes have been put in place). The company raised quite a bit of money in 2021 and receives funds from government research grants so they’re in a good financial position and are even looking to hire a bit in 2024. The company culture is positive, the software team as a whole gets along quite well and I genuinely like my manager; there’s very little office politics. The company also encourages its engineers to learn. Admittedly though, strong mentorship is lacking; something that I think I’d be highly receptive to given that I deeply cherish and frequently act upon feedback. As for the company's future, I think the company has established a solid technology moat and might do well (maybe unicorn?). But I don’t think the company will explode into wealth anytime soon (5+ years to get there) and the equity payoff is OK (I might make an additional $280K/yr if the company 20x in valuation to be a unicorn). The reason I am seriously considering resigning is the commute. The company has a hybrid model (3 days in-office, 2 days remote) so it’s about 1hr 30 min one-way, (3hr roundtrip) 3 days a week and it’s really getting to me. To commute, I walk 30 min (or 20 min by bus) and then drive for an hour, sometimes in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101-South to 280-South. Then I repeat this going back, one hour drive, and a 30 min walk (or 20 min by bus). In multiple ways, this is costing me. Financially-speaking, I’m paying $545/month ($250 parking and $300 for gas, that’s $12,500 gross, meaning pre-tax), so effectively I make $111,500/year. I could maybe pay more for parking ($350-$500) and skip the 30 min walk, then I’d be making even less. While I could live near Caltrain in SF, even taking Caltrain would involve taking a bus and then a 8 min walk (still roughly 1 hr 30 min one-way). Additionally, I really enjoy where I live in the city and would strongly oppose any move (as a last, last resort only). Time-wise, I strongly feel that it’s a waste of my time to sit in traffic! I often put on podcasts + songs to distract myself from staring at the bumpers of vehicles in front of me. Getting back 9 hours of my time per week (effectively a whole day) would be incredibly beneficial. This is time and energy that I want to put towards things that are deeply, deeply important to me, one of which being health (gym, yoga, movement in general). Health is a really important pillar for me and so having reduced time & energy to go to the gym strikes me as a major red flag for this job. I value my health far, far over compensation and career growth. Energy-wise, on the days that I commute, I feel incredibly low energy after work. I typically come home, eat junk food, watch some on Youtube and sleep late. It's not the person that I am when I’m not commuting. While I recognize that the market may not be so great, I am considering quitting my job in the beginning of next year and diverting my efforts to looking for a new job within the city, either startup or Big Tech (generally a company where the profit center is technology) and something with a much shorter commute (a bus or walk to somewhere in the city is perfectly fine). Alternatively, a remote job w/ healthy culture would also be OK. I also have 6+ months of savings and am not at a risk of being deported (a U.S. citizen). Additionally, I have multiple friends who live & work in SF, others who commute 1/week to South Bay and even some who work entirely remote. Some also work at SF startups that are actually looking for engineers right now! So in my head, it’s quite hard to justify driving each day, paying all this money, spending all this time & energy to work at a company so far away for equivalent, or many times, less money than I would be making here in the city or even working remote. Would greatly appreciate any thoughts y'all have! Any and all feedback is welcome :)

Hello, I'm looking for more software jobs to apply for I used LinkedIn and currently using Wellfound. Is there any other good job site I could use to find roles? Specifically, I'm looking for a backend or full-stack role. Also, I wanted to ask how I reach out about finding the rare junior roles that may not be advertised is this something I ask someone or do I hope a position I apply for will make an exception?

I feel like engineers on my team are all just doing their own thing. I work on the front-end, and when I go into front-end meetings, it seems like nobody has an opinion on how we can improve. I like working with the people here: Everyone is nice and the overall work/life balance and vibe are relaxed as a result, but nobody is pushing me to get better and I'm not even sure what better looks like. It seems like my manager is fairly removed from the code at this point, so they don't have concrete feedback for me. I get some meaningful feedback in code review, but not a lot. A lot of the comments are more surface level. Given all this, what can I do to grow more?

As I'm starting to join a team soon(and knowing this answer varies by team, level, and company), I'm wondering how long does onboarding take and what does it mean to be fully onboarded within your team

I'm going to be joining Amazon soon and the team I'm on is going from 4/5 people a month ago to I believe 9/10 people (counting me). Our team is going to be comprised of SDE 2's and 1's (I'm an SDE 1). I'm wondering what's the best way to have the best onboarding experience during this time. While it will be nice that I will have a decent amount of people who will be in the same boat as me in terms of onboarding, I'm also worried that my manager and more senior teammates won't have as much time for things like 1 on 1s, answering questions, helping me onboard, etc. if they're also helping other people on our team in addition to their own work.

Hello, I've seen a lot advice on here about doing side projects that are front-end focused and visible to recruiters, and it seems that Android/ iOS apps are a great way of doing that. I'm in a position right now where I have about 3 years of web development experience and so most of the positions I'm applying for are web dev related, although I'm open to any. I decided to start working on an iOS app because I thought it'd be fun and the app would actually be useful to me + others. I do have a side-project on my resume I did involving TypeScript/React, and so I was wondering if creating an iOS app with Swift and putting it on my resume would kind of hinder my chances at web dev jobs or would it still be something that could help land me an interviews for those jobs? Thank you, Hamza

My goal is to join a team that would allow me to have the opportunities to work on projects that have the potential to produce higher business impact & learning opportunities to grow and reach promotion in the shortest possible time. Early in my career, I don't think I would mind working longer hours or being stressed as long as it is for good reason (such as the opportunity to be promoted) and within my capacity to handle it and also as long as it is not something that is long-term and chronic stress forever. This is why I want to understand more about oncall. I know that oncall can be very stressful, and this applies to Atlassian too. Can being oncall be good for learning, even for a junior SWE, or does it always just give you chronic stress for no good reason?

I’m an entry-level SDE at my company and we recently hired a new manager for our team. In my second 1:1 with this manager, they said I am already performing at the level of an SDE II and would like to get me promoted. I did get the feeling that I did quite a lot for my level, and I maxed out the rubric for all the areas we measure at our company last year. Got good peer reviews as well. It's been about a month since this conversation and I'd like some advice on what I should do. Should I prepare a packet of some kind to help them make the decision? Should I just wait?

Sometimes I find people with a backround similar to mine who have gone to places I would love to go. Naturally, I would love to learn from them as they have done what I wish I could do. Their time is of course quite valuable and I understand that it might be naive to think that they would want to talk to a random person whose incentive might be mostly for career growth. Is there any way I could approach this in a genuine way? Or should I try to avoid connecting with people because of this reason?

So I wanted to ask the opinions of hiring managers or anyone who had to hire someone for a technical role. Could you possibly talk about some of the characteristics of candidates that made not want to move forward with interviewing/hiring them? And if possible, could you also talk about if you'd hire Junior Engineers and if not, why not?

Not a manager here but I strongly feel like understanding my manager's perspective is essential for me to successfully navigate my tech career. I understand that if a software engineer wants to become promoted, they need to complete projects with increasing scope involving increased technical depth, ambiguity, impact, etc in addition to many other things. How is this scope defined for engineering managers? Does it work the same way where engineering managers are rewarded for leading a team that develops highly ambitious products in terms of users, features, etc? Does the number of engineers on the team matter? If so, how does an organization prevent empire building from happening?

Hello Everyone, I need some clarification about where to take my career. My background: I have a bachelor's (Information Technology) and a master's degree (IT management with a dissertation using machine learning). I performed poorly during my bachelor's; to rectify that, I worked hard during my master's and was placed first. After university, I did gig work for a while and worked part-time at a startup where I was a solo developer (using Django and Flutter). After 2.5 years, I realised that my career was going nowhere, so I finished the project, quit (on good terms), and got a job as a Junior Full Stack engineer at a small company. I was fired after three months due to low code quality and asking too many questions, so I am unemployed now. My Conundrum: I need to figure out where to take my career as the market is quite bad. I have heard various opinions from friends and family, making me indecisive. The views that I have heard are as follows: Focus on backend-only roles using Python and contribute to open source. Focus on Analyst roles instead, such as Data or Business Analyst (Based on my skills from my master's) Learn React Native and get rid of Flutter. Learn something else instead of Python, such as .Net or C#. I did Java during my bachelor's, so I think I should be able to pick it up relatively quickly. I should pick one of these and focus on it, but I am having difficulty selecting which. Which area should I focus on? What would you do if you were in my position? Any guidance would be highly appreciated. Thank you!

Hi! I have an interview with the company that laid me off some months back. The manager who reached out to me for the role claimed that two people who work on this team already know me, so the idea would be to hire me on a contract, then get to work early since I know the system already, and get some quality work done fast. The manager and I have a pre-existing relationship: he was consistently checking in on how I was doing as I was in the process of officially leaving. This manager said he wanted to help me out, and that this role looked "perfect" for me. Given the market these days, I jumped at the idea. There's one really strange look to this. The recruiter told me from the jump that they're interviewing other people with 3 to 5 years of experience. Although I appreciate the honesty, you can imagine I'm pissed about having to fight other people for the job I deserve to have back (which the manager said I look "perfect" for), but I'm not going to voice that to the company because I'd look arrogant. This recruiter I was speaking with last Friday also said in an email "The interview panel will be mixed up a bit to try and be as unbiased as possible. They are excited to speak with you." Makes sense, because another thing in context here is that I do know quite a few people in that company. I got the name of who's interviewing me yesterday. I found the person on LinkedIn, and was very perplexed to see that it's some financial consultant person within the company. Someone with a very far from tech background, performing an hour long technical interview? Just ONE person, on top of that. I've seen interviews there where 3 people are grilling the interviewee. I have no idea what's going on. But I have 3 ideas. Firstly, maybe they're thinking "let's just give you the job and have a random interview you". That'd be nice, but I don't think it'll be that easy, so the second idea is they might be finding a technical interviewer, so they can run a strategy of "behavior cop/tech cop". Or, the last idea: they don't care and are gonna blow me off. Whatever happens, the company I'm interviewing for is opening up a LOT of software engineer spots in my area, so they're gonna try to find me a new position. I've asked multiple of my friends at the company what this could mean, but no one knows. I'll update this question when I receive an answer, but I wanted to gauge what y'all thought here. Thanks.

I'm trying to understand how the math works. Amazon offers a 5/15/40/40 split So im confused when I see on levels.fyi theres 30k stock options at amazon where is that coming from? does that mean year 2 theres 90k? and 250k years 3/4?

During my first 1 on 1 with a manager, I asked him if he could help me find a mentor and he said he would find one within our overall organization. He also said he could find me a manager within overall Amazon if I want. This would for overall mentorship in Amazon vs being limited to the scope of just my organization. What are some advantages/disadvantages of having 2+ mentors? Also are there any qualities I should be(or probably more likely asking him to be) on the lookout for those 2 mentors?

My starter project was to migrate a web service to a new API which offers similar functionality. This was intended to be a pretty straightforward migration, mostly renaming + replacing some strings. However, this project took much longer than my manager or I anticipated. How could I have predicted and prevented this?

I'm a Data Scientist looking to switch company and move to a role closer to ML/LLMs. My plan is to build a side project fine-tuning LLMs to familiarize myself with this field and leverage that experience on my resume. I was wondering if anyone here has experience building similar projects or went through a similar learning process - it would be very helpful to get some insights on skill acquisition and finding a job in this area. Here're some examples of what advice I'm looking for, but please feel free to share other aspects as well - anything will be greatly appreciated: What are some good resources to learn about building LLMs? (currently mostly learning from HF, reddit, and googling) What's the best tech stack to build personal fine-tuned LLM projects? (I'm planning to use Runpod or similar services like Vast for training and inference, but was wondering if there's other better options) I'm looking to get into an early stage company in this field. What kind of project should I build to maximize my chance at getting into such companies? My plan rn is to fine tune a model using literature works (novels, poems, proses, etc.) since training data is relatively abundant and it's aligned with my interests. Are there more impactful use cases (for job hunting) out there? What are some things I should keep in mind when producing deliverables to better showcase my technical and learning abilities? I'm planning to make a series of blog/social media posts documenting my experience building this project. Is there anything in specific that would draw companies' attention? Thanks in advance and please feel free to share your thoughts!

As a junior engineer, I ask questions and ask for help a lot in general. However, I want to make sure I'm not annoying my teammates and being too big a burden. How can I do that? Is there something I can do to return the favor for those who helped me?

Background : I recently started my first job as a new-grad at a Big-tech company (3-months in). I was assigned a project to work on led by a senior engineer but ended up working on it independently as he was busy with another feature ramp-up, so I ended up taking all the responsibility. Question : I've completed the design and currently a couple of months into the implementation, so there are many things that were done well so far. There are a few areas I can improve in however, and would like some thoughts there : The project is still in its early stages so there aren't many features. But I'd still like to keep stakeholders updated and get them excited to gain some visibility into whats being built. I obsess about the quality of the work / code being written that sometimes it reaches a point of decision paralysis, where I'm afraid to take action / build in new features. A lot of the uncertainty arises due to concerns about my lack of experience (which I sometimes fear could lead to sub-optimal work) Since I'm working on this project totally on my own, I feel things can get a little siloed (ie : I'm the only person writing code and working on this project and have just 1 person reviewing my code). Any thoughts on how I can address some of these issues ? :)