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

I currently have 2-3 side projects that are OK. They had some usage, shows my skills in building non trivial software.

But it feels like if a project doesn't have 10k users then its pointless in this market and I feel hesitant to do a project because I have this go big or go home mentality

Also 10k users feels like such a massive goal and if im not able to hit it then all the hours spent is wasted. There's also no gaurantee that the project will ever hit 10k users. Plus getting to 10k users is not just a function of building good software its also basically going to need you to be a part time salesperson/marketer which feels annoying/I dont enjoy it

My main motivation to build a project is to get more interviews

I want to hear the Taro community's thoughts on what's overrated/underrated.

It can be anything (IDE, language, food, headphones, chairs, keyboards, you get the idea), not just career/team stuff (Taro already has a vid on this)

I'll start:

Dark mode is overrated its too hard to read the text 😅

With the current state of the market a lot of people's career has taken 4 steps back working jobs that are worse than what they had been working or it's gonna take much longer to break into whatever you are aiming for.

It can be hard to keep perspective/"trust the process" with how bleak things are especially for someone who has never seen a down market before and has limited on perspective on what a normal market is like

Today I fumbled a technical interview.

I was told by the company I interned at previously to apply for a job posting. The person who knew the role is my manager from my internship there. That same manager I knew in there is now one position under the CTO. He told me it was a role that uses Spring Boot, Docker, and GraphQL. He said there’s a big effort to get GraphQL into the company’s architecture. It said “5+ years experience”, and didn't mention GraphQL, so I didn’t take it seriously. After I applied, the posting disappeared. My manager said the job posting I applied for was “probably just one of those ghost postings”. I had the behavioral where I spoke with the manager: I aced that. Today was the technical. The recruiter I was talking to was telling me this was an interview where I could show off projects, so I took the “prep some projects” approach. Did 3 projects. One using mern and GraphQL, one using typescript and express with rest architecture, and one using spring boot.  So I do that. I also prepped a Google doc with a list of common interview questions for all that I’m expecting. 

When I get into the interview, I get asked about my prior role. They said that showing projects wouldn’t be necessary: and that GraphQL wasn’t in the role. The first 20 minutes went well. I was asked about API stuff. I hear them say “good” sometimes, so I know something is right. Then I start getting asked simple questions I didn’t think to prep for. One was literally “what’s the difference between JDK and JRE”, and I knew what JDK was, but not JRE, and the difference between @override and @overload. I was then asked what Node is, so I tell them it’s a runtime environment (idk how I didn’t piece together what JRE was at this point), but I made a mistake because I should of delved into themes that made node.js incredible, like its event loop. Although I knew the basics of a microservice, it was only the basics. The interviewers were kind, and told me that although I articulated myself well, they’re looking for someone who knew more about microservices, and can code right now.

Luckily, the company told me prior to this that even if this doesn’t work out, they’d still want to hire me. There'll be another chance, but I realized I need mock interview help. I know I’ll need to review the Taro course on getting into and succeeding in interviews, but I also want to find people to do mock interviews with. How can I do that with Taro?

Thanks,

~Evan

I just graduated college this May and have no job lined up struggling in this really tough market.

Struggling to land a job in this market has me feeling like a failure/I'm doing something wrong even though I did all the "right" things when starting college (get good grades, do LC, get internships, do projects, network)

So fellow members of Taro, do you have any advice on how not to feel down during these trying times? Especially when seeing few classmates land jobs and I'm still struggling here

I hate to make posts like these since its depressing but there's people with far more wisdom than me and I would really appreciate any wisdom you can part :)

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

1. 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

2. 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 and got passed at the mid level so im not sure why i got rejected here.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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

Hi everybody. Last time I posted on here, I was laid off. I'm still laid off, BUT I got an interview where I interned at! It's a medium-sized financial company, looking to expand soon. The people I know in there are pretty high up. I told the recruiter that I was interested in making an impact on the business, and he really liked that about me. They said that no matter what happens with this interview, they're still gonna try to get me a software engineer job within the company. I think it was in a Taro course I saw when I first signed up where Alex said this, but the recruiters are looking for trust that you'll be able to ship production-level code. I've already done this within the company as an intern, and given my manager there at the time is now one guy under the CTO and CIO (the CIO remembered me and approved getting that position open!), I got that company trying to get me back in. Fingers crossed it works, but I'll have a hard time typing if I keep them crossed rather than code to practice beforehand.

The team is trying to modernize APIs. In the behavioral/vibe check interview, the manager told me that he has a bunch of awesome APIs he'd like to convince other areas in the company to use, but they're stubborn because their current processes work as they are, and they don't want to put themselves at risk by implementing the new awesome APIs. I'd be expected to act as someone who can have these conversations with these groups about the code and APIs they currently work with, and get them to buy in on the said new awesome APIs. It was originally a senior software engineer role, but they're interviewing me to see if they'd like to lower that to a mid-level role, and then (hopefully) hire me.

The role itself uses Node.js, SpringBoot, GraphQL, and Docker. I want to know what plan you guys think I should implement to study this next week and a half before it's technical interview day. I've been building some Node/GraphQL projects, and just worked on a SpringBoot project yesterday, too. A project approach is what I'm doing for this. I can also ask ChatGPT for some good interview questions on these things, but is there anything you guys can lob at me that will help me achieve proficiency (if not mastery) of those technologies in a week's time? Advice, tutorials, strategy planning, etc.

I'd really appreciate whatever y'all can throw at me. Thanks so much!

Evan

1. I'm not sure what theyre actually trying to ask here
2. I feel like as a new grad i just do what im told haha. I almost always trust my seniors instincts and judgement over mine. If I suggest something and its wrong I admit it and rectify it but I dont have a good response. My mistakes are usually pretty small and can be easily corrected i.e. there's no million dollar losses happening. I havent taken down prod or have any interesting stories about mistakes

I was asked that in an interview and I was stumped. I used the advice in the behavioral course to say like yeah usually before making huge decisions I always get others inputs on things so I've never made a huge mistake with severe consequences.

Is there a link to slack? I can't find it anywhere.

Hi!

I had mic issues in the OH and couldn't ask live. How would you recommend I prepare for System Design interview questions, especially since I feel my experience at my previous company didn't prepare me well for these?

I have 2.5 years of experience at a big tech company and was recently laid off. Ideally, I’m aiming for an ~L4 level position as I was L3 in my past role and was nearing promotion. I’m getting more interviews at start-ups now, and they typically focus on system design rather than leetcode questions. At my past company, the tools were so powerful that I didn’t get the same breadth of experience a new grad might get at a smaller company. For example, I never touched or thought about our database or considered scalability for our services. In hindsight, I should have taken the initiative to find projects outside of my team with more scope, but now I know better!

My current plan is to read "System Design Interview" by Alex Xu and go through the Taro System Design Masterclass. Do you have any feedback on this plan? I recently had my first system design interviews and have more coming up. I want to prepare as best as I can with the time I have. I’ve accepted that I may not excel at first, but any feedback to improve my preparation plan and mindset would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hello! I'm a junior SWE (about 1 year of SWE work experience) and I'm currently building my portfolio + side projects and intend to start interview prep in about July/Aug this year. Hoping to move into a new role by the mid of 2025. Does anyone have recent experience with formation dev and could share on what the experience was like & if it is worth it, especially in the current job market? I am aiming for big tech firms and definitely willing to put in the effort that is needed. Also spoke to a recruiter at Interview Kickstart but read online that the quality has dropped + the recruiter was kinda pushy so if anyone has experience with IK, do share here too. Thank you so much in advance, I'll appreciate any kind of advice on how to go about prepping as this is my first time!

Hi all. I am considering starting my own development consulting company in Jordan. People are well educated there but wages are low. You can hire great engineers there for the same that a restaurant worker gets paid in California. I don't have any problem finding and hiring good developers because I know the language and I have family there. I can find developers that are fluent in English but it's harder.

I am not sure how to start getting contracts in the U.S. I see that iOS and Android development are popular so I was considering to specialize in iOS development.

I only have about 2 YOE in the U.S. at FAANG so I could also run into a problem where I am not experienced enough to lead a team or company.

Legal stuff in Jordan is no problem. I have a relative that's a lawyer in Jordan and he explained what I need to do.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

I've looked through the code quality course but for the purpose of an interview can I get a checklist of things that the interviewer will be looking for in terms of code quality?

For reference I'm a junior SWE and I plan to use Python.

I wanted to ask you how do you normally break up doing vs study when learning something new in software development.

In general I want to be better coder and learn to how better apply my learning and I wanted to make sure I'm not going down a rabbit hole when doing either and most importanly making sure I'm not stagnant.

I am working with AWS and I was just promoted from L4 to L5 SDE role. I am yet to have the revised compensation discussion with my manager and was thinking if it is possible to negotiate the offer. During the annual PCS conversations, it was mentioned that the managers have more leverage for salary negotiations during the promo review. I want to understand what parts of the compensation I can negotiate upon. Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks!

I'm a 2023 new graduate working at a mid-sized software company that operates remotely. The company has a rotation program for new graduates, and my first rotation was with the backend team. After six months, I moved to the mobile team, and in another three months, I must decide whether to stay with the mobile team or return to the backend team.

Both teams have positive cultures, work-life balance, teammates, and managers. However, it seems the mobile team's manager faces more pressure from the leadership. The work I've done on both teams has been interesting, although the mobile projects were more challenging. This has forced me to think more about structure and patterns when writing code. It's clear the mobile team needs more engineers, while the backend team receives a steady influx of new graduates each year.

There were noticeable differences in the onboarding processes of each team. In the backend team, my tasks were intentionally organized, starting with simple tasks like deleting a few lines of code and gradually moving to small projects with pre-written design documents.

The mobile team gave me a series of official tutorials for the first two months. The tasks varied greatly in difficulty—some incredibly challenging and others relatively easy. I understand the difference, as the backend teams have more experience with new graduates, while the mobile team typically hires experienced engineers directly.

My decision pivots on whether I should pursue a career as a backend or mobile engineer. I am grateful for the rotation opportunity my company has provided, but I'm unsure about the next steps. What factors should I consider when making this decision? What kind of question should I ask my managers or help I can get from them for making a better decision?

• 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

I know about the Pomodoro Technique but I feel that 25 minutes is too short of a time block to get and stay in the zone.

How would you organize your day into time blocks for deep work while maintaining focus and not burning out?

• Four-hour blocks with a break in between?
• One eight-hour block (if there are no meetings)?
• One six-hour block?

Hi, I have a question about answering these prompts for Meta referral

1. How well do you know this person's professional skills within their area of expertise? (Never worked together, just by reputation, worked occasionally, very well)
2. Why do you think your referral should be hired?

How important are they? What are they looking for?

I just had an amazon behavioral interview. I'm a new grad SWE and interviewing for a non technical customer success role.

The interview was 3 behavioral questions. I tried to use STAR as much as possible but the interview was really like 15 ish minutes for the 3 behavioral questions. The interviewer did not follow up for 2/3 questions. At the end I asked 3 questions. total time was 20 minutes. Is it a red flag that my interview was only 20 minutes?

I think I was able to answer the behavioral questions and I mentioned the impact of my work/results at the end though I will admit I didn't go into super depth on the results part and focused more on the actions I think. This was my first real behavioral interview as well.