Mid-level Engineer Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

During design meetings, when there are questions that causes circling around a topic that is marked as out of topic. Even though I tell people that it is out of topic as we don't have time to build it and no plan to build it in future and people are still ask questions about same topic. When I personally feel its a nice to have feature but the scope has already been defined, what to tell and move forward to continue with the rest of the design?

Hi Taro Community, During my recent 1:1 with my manager, we discussed the idea of me sending weekly updates about my work, and he was in favor of it. I want to ensure that these updates are concise, informative, and structured in a way that facilitates clear communication and showcases my progress effectively. Could anyone share formats or templates they’ve successfully used for similar weekly updates to their managers? Any tips on what to include and what to avoid would also be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your insights!

I've been 2 years in my team and I'm the only person working on the front end side. The other 5 engineers in the team are all in backend. Last month, there's a new college grad joining the team and my manager has asked me to onboard the new hire to frontend side. I have concerns that after onboarding a new hire, I won't be as critical to the team. How should I approach it?

I have a weekly 1:1 with my manager. I want to share the 1:1 doc I've been keeping, but I'm embarrassed that I feel like my onboarding (I'm in my 6th week on the job) has been slow and I haven't hit the 1 month target we set in our first meeting. Should I share my 1:1 document with my manager given that I haven't hit this target? My guess is I should bite the bullet and do it, because the logic is he already knows. The argument not to share would be "no need to remind him of my failures". I know that 1:1s should be awkward, so I guess I should share this info. Thanks!

I've noticed that my manager often doesn't acknowledge my suggestions or thoughts during team meetings, even though our one-on-one interactions are fine. I feel that high-impact opportunities are given to other team members, despite my requests for them. I am moved to support work recently (manager claims that this is also high impact and there is scope to reduce operational work). Additionally, I received the no salary increment in my team in last review. I also feel that my manager supports a teammate at the same level as me more than they support me, even though we are both working towards promotion. I'm not sure what to do—whether to stay and hope things improve or transfer to another team and start fresh. If I change teams, I will need to start working from scratch for my promotion.

wanted some advice up here. As of late I have observed myself slacking at work. I used to enjoy doing the work I did but as of late it feels repetitive, and even though there is so much scope to learn, I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of it and let it go. My coding skills have also deteriorated and I haven’t had any promotion the 4 years that I have been here and am still a mid level engineer. Had a convo with my manager and he said to create more impact to be a senior engineer. I am going through Alex’s course at the moment but how to overcome getting overwhelmed at work, and take it slow and one at a time? I am also looking into creating my EB1 profile as well but am very confused right now. How can I be a better engineer? Any suggestions and tips to keep in mind to be motivated at work again? Thanks

Code freeze is coming up next week so everyone is scrambling to ship their diffs in right now. However I am facing a hard technical blocker which can be resolved by a coworker on another team, but he’s too busy with his own diffs to help out. I am unable to reproduce or debug this issue myself as it involves some highly technical details about how a proprietary mobile framework (Bloks) interacts and compiles down to the Android native fragments, and I have minimal experience with either. The coworker wrote that specific part of the Bloks framework and no one else seems to understand it (even the Bloks on-call couldn’t figure it out). What can I do at this point?

I came into Meta with ~1.5 years of startup experience. I'm very good at Leetcode-type problems, so I was able to land an E4 offer. However, my prior experience mainly consisted of raw coding (E3-scope), meaning that I didn't have much experience developing E4 behaviors coming into Meta. This has led to me struggling on my current team where my manager let me know that I'm currently trending around MM. My team and manager have compounded this by being quite ambitious - I've gotten a lot of E4 EE+ scope with things like complex 0 to 1 projects (my manager is trying to get me to E5 ASAP). This is all hard to handle and has been a huge source of stress for me, so I'm currently considering other options. Here's what's on the table: Stay on my current team and stick it out, trying to recover to MA by the next PSC. Switch to another team within Meta that's slower-paced. Job hop to Google as an L3. I was able to land an offer with them during my job search, and I kept that line open. I'm exploring team matching with them now. Go through some additional interview rounds with Google to get in as an L4. Which of these is best for my career?

I'm going through Alex's Excellent Course on Productivity In the lesson on Focus Blocks, Alex talks about the value of long uninterrupted periods. Notably, he says that a focus block should be minimum 4 hours. This got me thinking, what do these 4 hours (or longer) look like? Is it 4 hours sitting down uninterrupted at your desk? Is it 4 hours broken up by getting up every 30-60 minutes to grab a snack or chat with a colleague at the office? Do short walks outside (Touch Grass) fit in them? I'm not trying to be annoying or nerd-snipe, I just want to know what the nitty-gritty behaviour of the world's most productive software engineers looks like :) For me, I feel like I have a mild case of ADD, so if I score a victory, minor or major, in my code, I get up and do a quick meditation, use the washroom, and/or stretch after ~30 minutes, but my hunch is more productive people sit uninterrupted for longer.

I'm on a small team attached to a specific fund at a hedge fund (there are many different funds both in the main org and subsidiary orgs). Due to compliance reasons, my specific fund has been firewalled off from the main hedge fund so we don't have leaks and conflicts etc, and as a result our codebase and infra are entirely separate. Generally, what can engineers do to grow if they've been placed on teams that operate outside the main engineering org? Is the solution just to transfer to the main org eventually?

I spoke to my manager about putting a promo packet up this half for an E5 promotion. I didn't rush into this. I've watched Taro's E5 promo crash course, have listened to my manager's feedback and consistently improved myself each time. Now I feel ready. The Staff Engineer (TL) I work with has also vouched for me and said on the engineering excellence axis I'm performing way better than the other E5s on the team and he's not concerned about the other axes either. I've shared this with my manager. I've been performing at this level for about 2-3 months now and will continue to do so for another 2 months before perf season. For some additional context, I joined Meta in Feb as an E4 and was aiming to get to E5 in 1 year. I know this seems aggressive, but that's because Meta down leveled me. My manager said that I need to continue doing this for another half. Is this usually the case? Maybe I set my expectations too high by reading Alex's Linkedin Posts about mentoring engineers to E5 so quick :) FYI on the internal career pages it says "1-2 quarters (or more)" which could mean absolutely anything

I've developed an interest in robotics and perception, localization, etc. I'd love to build software that handles these problems. But as I do more research, I get the impression I need to go to grad school to qualify for such positions. Also, a side follow-up, if I do have to attend grad school, does anyone have any experience going back to grad school after industry? Especially if you don't have a competitive GPA or any research experience beforehand (my situation).

Hi, I hope you are having a great day! Recently, I received an offer from a non-tech company in Seattle with significantly lower pay than I would have wanted (less than 100k, and that is the maximum they could budget). The joining date is just in a week from now. Honestly, I feel like I have no other option but to accept it right now given the low interview response rate and the visa restrictions I have. To provide more context, I am an international student who recently completed my master's from a top 10 university. I have over 3 years of experience working as a software engineer in my home country, primarily in smaller companies that are not well-known in the United States. So far, I have only been able to interview with three companies and this was the best offer I could get. I did have a few initial calls, but they did not work out mostly because of lack of visa sponsorship or mismatch in skillset. However, I am motivated to switch to a better company with higher pay as soon as possible and with better preparation. I feel I deserved better and feel very unhappy about the role and pay (given that I invested a lot of money for my masters and worked really hard :( . Please let me know if you have any suggestions or advice on how to better prepare, and when would it be a good time to switch (not sure when the market will get better).

Hi Team, My team has a really great manager who I've been working under for past 3~ years who has aided me in fast tracking my career growth, however there will be change in structure, and our team will be led by a new Manager. As a result, I'll be required to build up the relationship with the new manager, earn trust, etc. However, at the same time I'm worried that all the progress I've put forwards to build a good case for my promotion might get lost as I've been doing a lot of work that doesn't directly reflect in overall Team's Yearly planning such as drastic improvements in OE (Saving multiple SDE weeks yearly), many architectural upgrades to existing systems (as a clean up activity while working on my main project) etc. I feel these data points might get lost: How can I ensure that the transition between managers will not end up affecting my long term growth plan? I still have 3-4 weeks till the transition is complete.

What strategies can I employ to excel in my new role as a senior software engineer at a tier 1 tech company, coming as a mid level engineer.

So I have worked in codebases where there’s one repo per microservice or maybe at most 7-8 services in 1 repo with good CI/CD that’s isolated. Those repos we just develop independently of one another. I’ve seen this throughout my career of 4 YOE. Is it a fair statement to say that “I don’t know what real onboarding is”? I usually have gotten away with knowing the structure of spring boot microservice, maven gradle dependency downloading, how kafka consumer works in spring how rest api typically gets exposed in spring high level knowledge of spring bean creation how db interactions have been done. reading the arch diagram and learning where the infra is to connect dots. This has made me able to ramp up fast and get productive within 2 weeks and follow discussions. I don’t know if I just have “had it easy my whole career and I need to step my game up”

Right now, I have to write a growth plan to grow from mid level to senior engineer in my company. For doing this, me and my lead have decided to write down a growth plan for me. While searching for effective techniques, I found SMART framework and also how to set your goals. But I'm wondering if we have a growth plan expert here? And what framework/template/steps do they follow?

Hey there, for context, I completed my first year as Software Engineer. I joined the company because I was in dire need without checking the company culture, following which I was not satisfied with the designation. I then started to look out for a job. I got that offer after 4 months of joining with 33% increase in the salary. When I told my EM he was willing to talk to the HR and match the salary but then the Head of the department didn't promote my role in the light that others in the team will think and ask why in 4 months I got my role upgraded. The leadership conveyed that I might get the designation in the 6 months appraisal cycle. In the appraisal cycle they denied my promotion saying my salary doesn't match the orgs designation and they don't know what to do. I was not happy with the decision and since I didn't had any offers I kept working for the organisation hoping I will get it in the 1 year cycle. Now I didn't get the review form for 1 year appraisal cycle. I think they will say in the lines of because your salary was revised at the 4 month you are not eligible for this cycle. Though I don't feel my designation is the right one. But I have some other responsibilities as well like family, commute etc. I'm losing my motivation. I need help in crafting effectively to EM and HR so that they consider my role and some appraisal so that they inline my career in the organisation else juniors will have a higher role in front of me. From today I have also started looking out for other jobs, but I don't want to hurry in making decisions.

This will be a bit of a long story so please bear with me, I am willing to give you more context. I am a foreign student who graduated from computer science. I have been working in the field since 2021, I was more passionate about design and big data over intensive leet code coding. These were the projects I also aced in college getting 90% in Big Data or Front End Design projects and barely passing on coding intensive When I graduated to maintain my status I had to be employed in an E verified company so I took what I got, a full stack developer position. My mindset was more, maybe it’s a fear once I dive into might overcome it. The company was amazing and so were my managers. I loved every moment working there - I even finished all the assigned projects ranging from maintenance to building full MERN stack apps in 2 1/2 years. I learnt a lot and got more confident in my developer abilities. Despite getting things done and finishing projects, I did realize I want to dive into UI/UX/ Front End Development or Reporting, because I’ve always enjoyed doing that more than Full Stack. I had a talk with my manager to see if I can laterally move. He gave me a go signal, but I got laid off a month after. I will take 100% responsibility here that I had got a little complacent with furthering my career “outside “ work hours, and I learnt my lesson which I am willing to change and I got time to think about it after being unemployed 2 1/2 years of all the things I could’ve done better. It’s been 2 months. I’ve been applying for jobs and haven’t got any, barely got 2 interviews which I didn’t do well in, but I’ll keep persisting A sticking point I noticed here, generally being introverted I have some discomfort with marketing myself better or more like an imposter syndrome, and I was passive during my last work too which I know is not serving me anymore What am I doing which is in my control? I enrolled in Googles UX certification and plan to get my portfolio ready in 2-3 months so in future I can be transition into my dream career Enrolled in a SQL course so I can keep the option of reporting open Joined this group because I never had much of a tech industry network or guidance, and I plan to take my career more seriously going in future. Applying for jobs everyday, mostly Full stack because that’s what I can explain to the interviewer because I have experience. Since my OPT unemployment starts Nov 15 which I get 3 months of My questions: What might be the possibilities that I am not getting interviews at all? I am not even applying to big tech, mostly manufacturing companies. Where can I send over my resume for review? I do want to make the change into either reporting or UI/UX, because I am passionate about that and I believe I can kill it In that, how would you suggest an entry-mid level developer going down that path? I am open to any honest feedback.

Both Alex, Rahul, and many mentors in this group are very successful with a wonderful career trajectory. I'm curious when you generally look back at your career, what are some career choices that you regret making? Equipped with your current knowledge, if you have the opportunity to start from scratch again, what would you have done differently?

I’ve recently been applying to various jobs, just in case of an unexpected layoff (golden parachute). Lately, I’ve been motivated to upskill as a developer. I’ve now reached the two-year mark at my company. After the reorg, I have a new manager, team, and director, and I really like this team. My performance over the past six months has been better than it was with my old team. Recently, Google reached out to me for an interview, but I haven’t really studied data structures and algorithms (DSA) due to work. My performance hasn’t been great, and now I also have a phone interview with Meta. On the plus side, my company's stock has surged, and we’ve received bonuses, raises, and promotions. In my last 1-on-1 meeting with my manager, he told me I should be more independent and that my performance is great (hinting at a promotion)—fingers crossed. My family and friends are encouraging me to interview with both Meta and Google, but I don’t really want to leave my current company.

I have often observed that male colleagues become friends quicker over common interests. Men also don't joke as openly with us in fear of offending us in professional setting and humour is an important factor towards friendships. As a woman it takes me atleast an year longer to create a similar bond with a colleague. I have often seen such friendships creating a major impact on career. There were two instances where two my colleagues paired up and took major initiatives and brought great ideas. Whatever knowledge one had, he would share it with the other. In both these instances, these dynamic-duo pairs had a faster than usual promotion. It could be a cultural thing, but I wanted to hear from other women in this community if you ever felt like you were missing out. If yes, how did you navigate through it?

Link: I built Filtr a job board that matches your resumes to job postings using AI. It goes beyond using keywords so i find that it gives pretty high quality results I built it because I was tired of job boards that gave irrelevant jobs and string matching based on title. Especially in ML where titles are often vague Currently its almost at 10,000 users and 6,000 applications sent out. View stats here: I also pulled some clever tricks and I’m running this for 2-3$/month (and yes that includes parsing 40 Million tokens a month, location parsing, hosting, ML stuff, proxies) all without startup credits. It's all thru publicly available free tiers (except hosting which is via a student discount but theres a million low cost hosting options) The Taro courses on side projects were extremely helpful. Here's my perspective as a backend focused person building webapps ### How to get ideas Just. Build. You get ideas by organically running into problems. As I was building this I ran into so many problems that could be its own project (e.g. an app to generate cool demo videos like screenrun.app but free, an AI powered web scraping tool that runs by itself) Build something, see if it gets traction, if it doesn't move on. You'll run into more problems as you build ### How to design well Just look thru all the similar products, note down what u like, what u don't like then just ask v0 to build the version that has everything u like - everything u dislike. ### There is no excuse for bad UI With the age of AI, cursor, v0, lovable.dev your v1 should ship (to strangers) with good UI. I had not even written a single line of frontend code before working on this, but with the help of AI i learned on the fly The bar for software quality is very high, especially your frontend. If someone sees a terrible UI they assume your app sucks and its hard to get people to try it again The caveat: Ship to people you know ASAP even if the UI sucks. These should be your core users who will be willing to use a shitty UI 80% of my frontend is written by AI. tbh i still cant write a simple if statement+for loop in java script without googling 🤐 I get v0 to generate the frontend, then ask Claude to stitch the logic as I need it to More in comments

For my current project, we have a standup call in the morning and end of the day check-in Check-ins were decided by the manager I understand it helps unblock faster but it is creating more anxiety than helping me since I do focus work either early morning or after 4pm. Hence, have no good updates for the team. I also seem to only focus outside of the official work hours 10-4