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

I don't have a CS degree but I am working as a junior engineer. I am currently in the process of learning software engineering concepts and building foundational knowledge of systems (haven't really gotten into it but that's my next plan).

With the whole AI frenzy going on, my attention keeps diverting from one area of focus to another. It's hard to prioritize the things that I want to learn, and I am getting quite overwhelmed. Why? Because I've 1 year of experience and as a result of this constant flip flopping, I don't think I have really gained foundational knowledge of a certain topic which is appalling.

I failed out of my computer science program at university for this exact reason - did way too many hackathons at the cost of gaining a foundational understanding of topics. I want to do things right this time and not fall for the same trap where I sacrifice becoming good foundationally.

Has anyone faced this issue before? Looking for some advice on how to manage expectations and learning to grow as a developer.

The question applies to everyone - but particularly to juniors with little experience using cloud services.

For instance, I once built a CRUD web app using Firebase. However, I was wary of providing payment info, given the numerous stories of people getting large bills from accidental overuse or DDoSing. Thus, I wasn’t able to use Cloud Functions, leading to me using Firebase antipatterns.

For instance:

• Creating new user’s profile data in the frontend (instead of a Cloud Function)

• Building a dedicated backend to securely make third-party API calls

• Manually versioning my production data by downloading JSON (no backups available on free tier)

I even considered migrating my web app to Supabase, which doesn’t have this problem (and is also SQL-based), just so I could avoid doing silliness in my code.

More recently, I’d like to build a hacky side project needing a service from Azure (or AWS, or Google Cloud). I could build an MVP in a few hours on the weekend (in fact, I already did - now I just need to connect it to the service). However, I’m wary of providing payment information.
I understand the typical policy is to forgive accidental misusages.

However, I’d prefer to use these tools properly instead of relying on goodwill (which, as , isn’t always reliable).

After all, it would be atrocious marketing to punish small players when most of cloud providers’ revenue comes from large, established organizations operating at scale.

How might I approach this? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts - I know Taro runs on Firebase!

Hello, everyone. It is March 29, 2024 at the time I am creating my first ever post on Taro. This is the Friday night where as of now, I am no longer an employee of a Fortune 500 company I used to work for. I was, how one says in corporate talk, "impacted by a layoff". I was given news of this on March 7th that I had a few weeks before I needed to return all my work technology and leave. This is the night of my last day in the company. People in the company liked me, so they told me to apply and come back again. A LOT of people were willing to let me use them for referral. It was one of the top 10 worst feelings of my life. But, it should not be one of the top 10 worst things to happen in my life. It's on me to make sure of that. I'm only 24, so I'm confident I can bounce back. I was also given a severance package to last me until the end of July. My company provided me outplacement benefits (resume writing, interview prep, etc), but I heard they honestly weren't too helpful. That's why I'm here.

What I've done in the meantime is update my résumé. I also have a plan of action for how I want to handle this upcoming first week of the job search. I want to build small-scale projects of each programming language on my resume which showcase understanding of mid-level to advanced topics of the skills I list in my stack. I want to treat my job search like a 9-5 job, where half the work day is spent building meaningful connections, applying strategically, and interview prepping (I need a LOT of that now), and the other half is spent on coding, be it refining what I think I know and adding new skills: hopefully getting chances to contribute to open source and giving back to the community.

I think I need to work on things such as making my résumé stand out, ensuring my interview prep is rock solid, and finding opportunities to show what I can do.

In the meantime, I'll check out some content that Alex and Rahul have on Taro, but I want to ask everyone else how I can refine the best way to begin my approach. What do you all think I can do?

Thanks!

I was watching the course on "" 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 I have been watching on the taro courses.

I wanted ask is there a template that one can follow while writing test plan and how to map it for code reviews ?

Any example that can be shared to understand?

In the video in , 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'm in my last semester of my master's program. One of my professors asked me if I was interested in pursuing PhD. I like to write code and learn to build software rather than learning from theory. I like the idea of research, and I know if I pursue PhD focusing on ML, I will be able to learn a lot and break into the ML/AI industry much easier than my current state. I'm only worried about not being able to earn substantially for the next 4-5 years until I complete the PhD and join the industry. Given the current state of IT market, and also being an international student who eventually wants to remain in the US, I feel, PhD might be the right choice. Can someone help me evaluate the pros and cons.

Edit:
Some additional context that I think I should have mentioned. I love the idea of pursuing PhD. I have always liked research work. I'm not considering it only as an alternative. I just don't like the idea of a prolonged study while not able to earn as much during the same period.

The main question that I am trying to answer is: Will a PhD help me in the long run? How valuable is it compared to having work experience during the same time?

This may come off as a strange question.

It seems to me that there is a lot of nepotism for hiring and PIP. Teams I have been on seem to have a lot of the same race or religion. I notice hiring managers that have similar background to me are more inclined to give me interviews. My name gives a lot away about my background. I have low YOE but I notice that managers usually PIP people that have a different race and religion. I know this is why companies have committees for big decisions, but one person on the committee that plays favorites can make the difference.

Just wondering what your experiences have been with nepotism.

I've raised this concern to manager in almost every 1-1 once even in front of Director of Eng that I'm interested in more roles and responsibilities. Cuz I was not a fresher even when I joined the current company at entry level and now that I've done decent work too at current company.

But manager fails to give me a path/timeline of when will I be entrusted with some impactful work.

He criticises in public, and has a favourite too who uses this to influence the manager against others.

Manager also wants every small thing to be done his way and he presents the whole thing as learning opportunity for me.

If junior engineers are not supposed to do anything on their own then why are they even hired as engineers?

Should I look for new opportunities? Or how can I take away most from the current situation?

I am the last person who should be complaining right now, but I absolutely hate my job and the tech sector in general right now. I work at Sh*p**y and even though I got promoted, the hr culture has changed to not increase compensation upon promotion. There's a lot of other hr f**kery I am having to deal with besides this.

Clickbait titles on twitter, business Insider posts or any news media article talking about AI replacing software engineers has given me a headache. Like I get that CEOs are using AI as a coin term to jack up stock prices or raise money. I have enough experience to know there won't be a true AI software engineer for a while but it still bothers me somehow because of the uncertainty (media brainwashing).

Overhanging worry of getting PIPed and not being able to find a job, because a lot of my former colleagues who were let go took a full year to find a new gig.

I'm just exhausted from thinking. I'm scared to talk to my bosses because they will always side with senior leadership, and I am exhausted by the rumours that are circulating about Q* and all the other AI domination clickbait posts.

Has anyone been able to learn to defuse from situations like this? I bet 08' was even worse than the current times. How did people deal with job uncertainties then? Really need answers because my productivity at work has gone down the drain.

One of my colleagues from university recently completed his final interview round with SDM & Senior SWE. It has been five business days since then, but he hasn't heard back about whether he was selected for the role. He mentioned that the interview was supposed to be with HackerRank but encountered issues, so they used Google Docs instead. He said the questions were exclusively on basic Java and little bit of algo. He completed all five questions, except for one where he didn't notice a bug in the line, and another where his syntax was incorrect, although his logic was sound. His recruiter has been consistently responsive, which I told him is a good sign. I want to know what is taking them so long, whether they are considering rejecting him because of his mistakes or if they are planning to give him an offer.

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?

I am seeing many people making posts about Gaza or Israel on LinkedIn. American politics are becoming extremely polarized and many people feel a responsibility to speak out for what they believe. Gaza and Israel is the main example right now, but there are others. I also saw this trend when SCOTUS overturned Roe Vs Wade.

I might be seeing only a small percentage of people on LinkedIn but many high level engineers, managers and others at top companies are bringing politics into LinkedIn.

To be clear, I am not trying to make Taro a place for politic debate.

There probably is not any right answer to this, but I would like to hear opinions.

Thanks

For some context, I am a L1 with 1 yoe with experience in DevSecOps and was recently transitioned to an ML Ops role on a AI team where they have no CI-CD pipeline infrastructure and I am tasked with setting all of that up for them by myself. My goal is to hold off asking for a promotion until I actually prove myself and achieve this feat first and it’s also my long term goal to stay on this team as an AI developer, so I don’t want to bring this up with any potential negative consequences. I’m curious to hear more opinions on this matter.

I am a back end engineer that works with Java. What steps could I take to make a switch to a job that works with hardware and software? I have some small side projects to learn more firmware related skills but I'm not sure how I could make something that could help me switch career fields.

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.

I'm an entry-level engineer who recently joined a team working in a new domain for me. Despite my best efforts, I find myself making mistakes in my code, such as forgetting edge cases, missing function calls, or mishandling character escaping (to quote a few recent ones). While these errors should ideally be caught during unit or integration testing, our team lacks a formal review process, leaving me solely responsible for testing my code before it gets merged. Consequently, bugs occasionally slip through, requiring post-deployment fixes. Although we're not a customer-facing team, I am afraid this puts a question on my reliability and erodes trust the team can place on me to write good code, that doesn't require iterations of fixes.

Could anyone offer advice on how I can better anticipate scenarios and prevent bugs from being introduced? I'm also unsure whether my challenges stem from a lack of technical skills or effective communication. How can I ensure I'm asking the right questions and considering all relevant factors before writing code?

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I recently gave my first presentation ever and I was so confident about how to do it but when I saw so many people looking at my screen for the first time and going through my work with a fine-tooth comb I just froze and didn't know what to do. I've been on the team for a year and 6 months but never had to present before because I'm so used to coding heads-down.

Lots of "ums" and "buts" and a few awkward pauses and I just wanted to crawl under a table and hide. I feel so defeated because everyone will judge me and my calibre and hold it against me as an L3 who doesn't know what he's talking about. I could feel 50 eyes looking directly into my soul.

How do I recover from this? Are my chances at promo delayed? Did you experience this early in your career?

Also how to make sure you clear grasp of said fundamentals. I just say this cause it's never really keeping with all the latest technologies it's all about understanding said fundamentals. Also is there some learning path to follow I feel as if I never felt like I'm learning and to be a successful junior I need to find the best way to learn for me.

I've not had great reviews from manager in the past few months. I think it all started with me taking PTO for 3 weeks in december and something I handed over to team before leaving not working as expected. Before that maybe I had a made an impression that I was not proactive enough and it all escalated with this issue in PTO. They had to source a member from another team to get it done.

After I was back from my PTO I did work really hard to get back at the work left and finish diligently, but it again happened that after this work was merged, some other api's failed in Integration environment. And I fixed it soon and got it working. But by this time my manager had decided to put me in PIP I guess.

Now about the PIP, its 60 days long and the way my manager talked about it seemed like she wants me to take it very seriously and improve and she and other seniors can support me during that. My skip manager who is a director, however seems like a not so nice person, I also have a have monthly connect with him next week. He can easily influence the decision even if I do well and my manager wants me. How do I talk to him is one question? And how do I navigate this whole PIP is another.

Since the market is also very bad right now, I'm planning to work hard and complete every objective there is on the PIP document. What do you think about this? I am on stem opt visa and might have 3-5 months to find another gig that's all.

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:

1. What are some good resources to learn about building LLMs? (currently mostly learning from HF, reddit, and googling)
2. 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)
3. 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?
4. 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!

I have two offers and am having trouble deciding which one to take

Company A: Non-Tech company with ~1500 employees. They have a cloud computing division to manage their infrastructure

• Position: Cloud Engineer (AWS)
  • Work would involve provisioning AWS infrastructure, performing maintenance, upgrades, optimizations, migrating environments to the cloud, etc
• Base Salary: 135k
• Bonus: 10k (if performance is met)
• Location: New Jersey
• Work Style: 2 days in the office

Company B: Pre-seed stage startup (2 - 10 employees)

• Position: Software Engineer
  • Work would involve building new features for the startup including categorizing and ranking trivia questions by difficulty, etc
• Base: 110k
• Relocation: 5k
• Equity: 1%
• Location: Los Angeles
• Work Style: 2 days in the office
• Founder Background: Used to work in Big 3 consulting. His/her last position was scaling a Series A startup
• Pre-Seed funding: $2 million
• Targeted seed funding: $3 - $5 million
• Traction: The app was launched 5 months ago and has acquired 45,000 users. The business used to be a marketplace and that's when they raised their pre-seed round ($2 million). Now the business is a trivia app for college students

What am I looking for?

• I'm not sure. My top preference is career progression/learning ability and given I don't have a family the startup option does make sense, however ...
• I greatly value stability
  • I've been through the tech interview process for many iterations now and it is really tiring to have to start over every year due to internships/bad-culture/layoffs/potential startup failing
  • Being unemployed for ~10 months now, I would say the majority of my interviews were for startup companies so I feel that getting an offer at a non-startup company is more rare/valuable (maybe?)

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thank you!