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

Hi team, as per my current situation there are cycles for promotion in August and in Feb. I am targeting the Mid-Level title and was told to wait until next Feb for Mid-Level instead of coming August. I asked for data points and was told I needed more time to mature. I actually would have appreciated some actionable data points if there were any, so that I and my manager can track progress. I have the following 2 pointers : 1. On a personal front I want to aim for the promotion in Feb and want to let my manager know my intentions and pick up work accordingly however I don't know how to put it across. 2. I would have liked if there were some actionable data points to nail promotion since my manager didn't mention anything explicitly, and I have read and watched guidance about your career is in your hands so wanted to know how can I extract these pointers from my Manager? I ask these because 1:1's currently . And would have appreciated it if there were actual data points /action items Would highly appreciate insights from folks on the platform . Thank you :)

How would you fill this gap of 3 years on my resume? (I had personal problems during Jan 2020 to Jan 2023) Before this gap I had my own Startup where I made Innovative Web Games and now I am working at a University as Full Stack Dev since 8 Months.

How to use data to come up with estimates for tasks at the initial stages? What's a reasonable time to come up with the estimates themselves (if there's research involved)?

Hey folks, need some advice on a good side project idea, not sure if this has been answered before! I’ve been trying to figure out a good side project to do, one that has impact and can get users as well as allow me to showcase my skills. I want to do one that involves the use of real time streaming technologies like messenger queues/kafka which are commonly sought after in the backend SWEs roles that I’m seeing. Also hope that this could me with some system design prep (eg event driven architecture etc). I have some basic experience of real time technologies in my day job, but i feel this is insufficient as much of the heavy lifting is done by the data engineers in my team (so I basically don’t get sufficient opportunity to work on it). I primarily develop web apps, so have no experience in mobile development. Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

When I was hired, the hiring manager said they were debating between mid-level and entry-level for me, but decided to go with the more conservative approach since I don’t know the tech stack here. How can I quickly show my technical skills despite not knowing the stack?

I was watching the course on "Focus, Focus, Focus" video from the coding course As an MLE how narrow should my focus of a tech stack be? and what constitutes as a tech stack? 99% of my work is in Python, but at 1 job I did 90% of my work in PyTorch At my current job I'm doing 40% sklearn/keras (it's a simpler version of PyTorch implementing same things, but is mostly used for ML stuff where models need low customization) + Pandas Rest 60% of my job needed me to start working with Polars which is pandas but faster and is more heavy weight (similar to PySpark/Dask) Is that too much branching? or Should I be narrowing my focus? TL;DR it's ideal to hone in on 1 tech stack, but changing circumstances need me to use different frameworks depending on the problem. Is that bad?

Hi all. I am working at a contract role right now with a small startup that ends in less than 6 months. There is a chance to convert to full time, but they could also just end the contract. I am confused about how to handle LinkedIn during this time. Should I keep the open to work badge? Currently I get a lot of reachouts on LinkedIn for interviews. I am not sure if that will change when I take the badge off.

As I watch , I see the slide where it mentioned MVP and just 1 Thing. And also, in the slide, the example of the app is Random Name Picker - Raffles, Decision and Groups. I have couple questions about this. To come up with the idea of Just 1 Thing application, I believe most of the ideas are already executed before. Is that something I do have to afraid of or not? When I search on app store now, I see similar apps to Random Name Picker. And I'm afraid for how we grow the number of users as most of users choose to use something existing with top rated. If we take number 1 question as a factor (most of users choose to use something existing), how to come up with the idea about something that someone has not executed before? I want to build on side projects by myself but to come up with something specific with quality. I'm thinking about to do system design doc (define specific requirement, breaking the big task to small task (make it granular, etc)). Try to make a plan before make any execution. Please let me know if this plan works for me or not. I want to execute on how I can serve something to users that we all think it's useful.

I had recently joined as an entry-level engineer 6 months ago, and I have been told now that I will be basically working as part of two teams, with half of my time devoted to each one. So I will essentially continue to deliver some work to my current team, while learning a new tech under the same org and delivering to them as well. The new team I will be working with is still unsure, I have been given two options and have been told about the scope of each of them, I have to revert back with an answer in a few days. I have been told that priorities might change, and adjustments will be made accordingly. So everything is a bit dicey at the moment. My concern relating to this is: Is this an indication of my current team not having sufficient work for an entry-level software engineer like me? It is a database-ops team, already having 2 senior-level developers. Furthermore, is it an indication that I am not delivering at the level they expected and hence my abilities are not of use in the current scenario? I haven't explicitly received any negative feedback from my manager or my peers so far, and have been overworking sometimes. However the current change is a bit overwhelming given it is still not sure where I would be used as a resource, or if my work is actually making an impact. Also even though there is no negative feedback, there has also not been a lot of positive encouragement, it is like a neutral situation where I have been told I am meeting expectations, but it feels like I might not be exceeding them, or might just be an average performer. Just wanted to know if anyone here has faced this before, or have any insights on this. Also since the market is bad, I am a bit concerned that this change might not be an excuse for a future layoff or something like that.

Now that PSC for the first half at Meta is nearing an end, do you think it makes sense to ask my manager for a raise in our next 1:1? Or, given that Meta is a big tech company, are raises purely based on rating?

For my Behavioral rounds Preparation. I curated all the questions surrounding leadership principles I also created STAR answers for each question I try to demonstrate that I have led Projected and Solved challenging problems on my own. But even with that interviewers seem to downlevel me from L5 > L4 (Amzon Levels). what qualities I should exhibit to get L5 level and how should I prepare for it?

Hi all, recently during Q1 roadmapping I chose to move on to a new workstream from a growth/independence point of view as part of working my way up to E4. (My earlier effort was a 1->100, this one is 0->1 and was decided by me, my TL and EM together), and I had a couple of questions about this move. I have spent the past 6 months gaining context on a set of technologies and tools (internal to Meta) that perhaps only 2 other engineers on the team have context on. 1. Should I do a knowledge transfer session or write up a doc to ensure all the context I have doesn't get lost? 2. Should I allocate some time to supporting the team until I'm here on areas I gained context on? There is some possibility of scope thrash since I'm also long-term supporting one of the projects part of the earlier workstream (I delivered the v0 and have been making iterative but small changes since then). Should I talk to my manager about this? This is a very n00bish question: from a growth perspective, is it better to go 110% on the new workstream and all its nuances/open problems or go 80 and 20? As far as allocations go, I'm slated to be 100% on the new workstream as part of the roadmap. Bonus question: should I do a year-in-review/look-back post in tandem with my self review? (This is a very Meta-specific question in a way, but would love to hear other views too!)

I'm looking to get promoted to E4 in the next cycle, but I'm worried as my impact contribution isn't very clear. I've done a lot of work, but due to churn within my org (which includes a recent re-org), a good amount of my code isn't truly in production yet. I've documented my work in Quips and tasks to show that I did it, but I'm wondering if a lack of shipped impact will hold back my PSC.

I've heard it's always good to try and understand your manager's perspective, their expectations, and what they need from you. I assume most junior engineers wouldn't have prior management experience, so it would be useful/insightful for junior engineers gain some perspectives on the priorities and challenges a manager faces whilst running a team, so they can better help the team.

I am a self taught dev, and I keep getting this horrible imposter syndrome that I must know the fundamentals of operating systems, networking, or computer architecture even though it has nothing to do with my job. It almost seems that I am the type of person that needs school even though I failed out of it. How can I learn to cope with not needing to know everything? It seems like I want to learn everything but honestly it's not necessary.

Hi! I'm a new member looking to participate in the book club sessions for the Designing data intensive applications book. How can I get a copy of the book?

I'm a backend engineer and I've been working weekends/after work on my side project for the last 3 months because my actual work experience is really awful due to bad team matching, I barely even code in my day job. On reddit I got about 100k views and 500 upvotes total with 60 comments. I now have 1000 people who have done a core action on my app/meaningfully used my app But now I feel like to get to 10k users I pretty much just need to spend 95% of my time just marketing/content creation and 5% actually building software. My goal is to use this to get more interviews at companies im interested in (which are unicorns/late stage startups) and then start job searching early next year. (not interested rn since its holidays and I want to take it easy/have fun) Is it worth investing time working on this project and spending my free time after work creating a tiktok and marketing this app and posting on reddit for the next few months? I certainly wont be learning anything, but users do look good on the resume. If it wasnt that I would be spending time practicing leetcode. Not anything aggressive but just 1hr a day which really adds up over 60 days. Not sure which is higher ROI TL;DR: side project has 1000 users. should I leetcode in free time or market my side project?

I work at a relatively small private company, and we spend pretty much all of our time churning out features as customers request them. I'm wondering if it makes sense to also spend some time digging into data to better understand user behavior. I'm trying to find ways to add value to the company besides just feature work.

Hey everyone, I need some advice! I’m currently working as a SWE at a large, non-tech corporate company, with a little over 2 years of SWE experience. I don’t have a CS degree—I made an internal pivot to SWE—and while life is extremely comfortable right now, I’ve been actively trying to leave my current role. Since I have a lot of time on my hands (I work just about 3-4h a day in my day job), I’ve been working on side projects and doing some freelance work to upskill. These efforts have paid off to some extent, as I’ve started landing interviews after months of no traction in a tough job market. However, I feel like my growth through these side efforts has plateaued recently. I have also been doing Leetcode and system design, and though I have improved a lot, I don’t think I am sufficiently proficient and will still need more practice. In the past few weeks, I came across an opportunity at an early-stage AI startup that I’m genuinely excited about. After going through their interview process, I’ve made it to the offer stage. The startup is YC-backed, and the founder mentioned they have a 2+ year runway. However, the offer would require me to take a slight pay cut in terms of cash compensation. While the total compensation (including stock options) would be similar or slightly higher than what I’m earning now, the cash portion would be lower. I’m really interested in their product (especially the AI parts) and the potential learning opportunities, but the compensation is holding me back. If I do decide to join, I don’t plan to stay for very long—probably just 6 to 12 months. Would this short tenure be a red flag for recruiters down the line? Or would the experience at a startup add enough value to my CV to outweigh that? Should I trade all this free time that could be spent on Leetcode/ system design/ side projects and comfort with something that is unknown and potentially way longer hours? For context, this would be my first job move, as I’ve only ever worked at one company so far. Please help!

I applied for a position and didn't get it but the recruiter said I could send him the role I'm interested in. I have sent him a position I was interested in and he responded earlier but when I reached out again I didn't get a response. Do you think it appropriate to call/ email him again when it has been a few months?

For early stage startups (< series A) Medium stage startups (B-D) Unicorns (pre-IPO - IPO'ed in < 2yrs ago) F500s Public Companies (e.g. adobe, wayfair, quora) FAANG This is for strictly DSA not something like pair programming. This is also for Jr/Mid level interviews

Hi everyone, I’ve spent 6 months at Meta, and I don’t have a project for next half. I want to scope out my project for next half from the roadmapping so I can demonstrate E4 level? I’m very new to this. How do I do it, and can you share resources that can help me?

Hi, I'm a frontend developer with 2 years experience at a startup company. I came from Seoul, South Korea and recently moved to the US (Washington State) and I'm trying to find a job. I'm applying for a frontend job but personally it feels more difficult because I don't have a lot of connections. I wish there are people who can mentor and review my resume etc. The problem is "How can I even approach them in the first place?" I don't know how to start a conversation or how they will react. I am worried that I might take their personal time. if you have any advice, feel free to give me. Thanks for taking your time to read this.

I often see advice online / receive feedback from so many different sources. That could be during manager 1:1, peer feedback, reading content on LinkedIn, etc. While I resonate with it, I often find it hard to track all the feedback / advice I receive and holding myself accountable to act on it or change my behavior. This is especially hard when the advice is not immediately actionable (i.e. situation based). So my question is, how can I consolidate the learnings from all of these sources and make sure I act on it (or at the very least, remember it when a situation arises)?