Mastercard Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

Hello!

So, my job's getting outsourced this summer, and I'm deep into figuring out my game plan for interviews. I'm mostly a frontend engineer, working with Angular, SCSS, and ngRX for our app. I've dabbled in backend too, even went full-stack in my team, but my backend skills aren't great. My manager supports me marketing myself as a full stack person, but I'm wondering if going all-in on full stack jobs is worth the effort during the interview prep, especially since I'm not a big fan of backend work.

Then I wonder if the downside of applying for frontend jobs is that there are not that many and the barrier for frontend is lower (maybe because of coding bootcamps and it can be self-learned) so competition will be higher.

Now, I'm drowning in prep work - data structures, algorithms, frontend know-how, and system design. Recently got hit with a surprise system design coding round in an interview (an internal position I arrogantly thought I had in the bag) I thought was all about frontend and DSA. Did okay, but not stellar, and now I'm feeling unprepared for every interview. I feel crippled to even apply to positions. It's a bit of a mess.

So questions:

1. Any tips on tackling system design questions, especially the coding part? Most online resources seem to focus more on design rather than coding specifics.
2. How should I balance DSA, system design, frontend prep? What topics and how much time should I commit to each of them?
3. Also, am I on the right track leaning towards applying for just frontend roles?

Appreciate any & all feedback!!

I'm currently a frontend engineer at mastercard with 3 years of experience. I've been thinking about my next career move and do want to increase my compensation significantly within the next year. Outside a promotion, I can start leetcoding (I'm very out of touch atm) and try to land a higher paying job. But the other option is to learn blockchain and try to break into that field as it is more niche, maybe more high paying, and competition would be less too. But a quick glance at blockchain jobs on linkedIn wasn't very convincing as most jobs were asking for staff level devs. What do you guys think is the best avenue? Learn a niche technology or go the traditional route of leetcoding but has also has a plethora of competition especially in the current economy?

Appreciate your input!

Hello,

This platform is awesome and I've been looking at a bunch of resources for career advancement. One aspect that strikes me is to play into my strength. While I do enjoy coding (only if it's front-end or mobile -- visual stuff!), it's not my strength or something I will really do outside my job. I do love being in any conversations that involve innovative features for our customers, making our product more modern aesthetically, or questioning the features we do have. The idea of being a staff/lead/principle engineer keeping up with latest angular features or being on call outside job hours to fix some server or UI issues come up isn't really appealing. But I do want to grow. I want the chance to mentor people, influence a project, be in cahoots with people who make decisions about what we want to create, be close with customers, etc. I love the design (UX) aspect as well.

If I stay as I am, I know I will slowly grow linearly in this software engineer role. I do think I will get the senior developer role next year. But most folks who have a C-suite role in product or beyond seem to have an MBA but I am not sure if that's a valid move nowadays. I am taking a couple of tiny PM projects but outside that, what can I do to have the best chance of landing a C-suite role later in my career and making an impact beyond coding?

Looking forward to your replies!

Hello! Just joined this community yesterday and the information I've seen so far is invaluable! This platform truly is unique!

My question is about the overwhelming and sometimes contradicting information for front-end engineering. I was a backend engineer for 1 year and then switched to a frontend engineer within Mastercard since I love the design and visual aspect of it. It is much more gratifying. We work with Angular in mastercard but I feel like my skillset is very specific to our codebase. I am good at debugging (cause that's what most of my work is recently) but I don't know how that can transfer to other jobs. I also feel like Angular is an older framework. I want to join a proper tech company next year (outside fin-tech) as a senior front-end engineer. What do I need to do to get there?

Should I dive deep into Angular and make tons of projects with Angular? Should I learn React or some other frameworks and make projects with those? Should I look into full-stack roles and brush up on backend (Java)? All of the above??

I am a bit lost and any guidance would be appreciated!

Thank you!!