Startups Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

I'm a junior SWE at a small company which does not have a lot of standardized culture or process. A lot of inaccurate / non-standard terms get thrown around (for example, we call the entirety of one of our older apps the "backend" because of the way our repo is structured) and I've found that this has caused confusion in meetings, especially with new engineers being onboarded. Even though something like this usually only causes a 10-second confusion which is cleared up with follow-up questions, it feels like such an unnecessary inefficiency that could be easily resolved. Also, in general, I believe this can leak into situation where repercussions are worse like client-facing or investor-facing meetings, where for example a manager might call the old app the "backend" to a client, leaving them confused and thus unaligned on what's going on.

I typically wouldn't care about something of this scope as a junior, but it seems to me that the entire org would benefit from something like this, and that nobody else has addressed it nor will address it. So I've drafted a proposal for standardized terminology, with suggestions for specific terms to use and specific terms to deprecate in our company vernacular.

My question is whether it's appropriate to submit this proposal to my managers. It feels necessary but also not be my place / come across as aggressive. Of course it is hard to answer this question without knowing the specific company culture, but nonetheless, I would like to hear thoughts from seniors about how something like this would come across when coming from a junior.

I went through and kudos to her for doing a great job at articulating everything so well.

But I was wondering at the same time if there are any differences in leading a tech team at a startup (100 engineers company) vs a FAANG company?

Hey y'all!

I've been interviewing for a startup. I'm in the reference check step. This was supposed to be the last step before getting an offer, but they wanted to interview me again to (paraphrasing) dive deeper into topics they hadn't had the chance to ask before.

This feels odd to me; from previous experiences, the reference check is the final step before getting an offer. They also said this in my email after passing the "final interview": they needed to do a reference check before extending an offer.

Question:

• Do you consider this to be a red flag from them?
• Should I be worried?
• Would it be okay to ask upfront what's concerning and take it from there?
• Is this common? This is the first time this has happened to me (I've had 5+ jobs).

Thanks!

In, Alex answered that the key insight behind rapid career growth is good communication.

He points the reader to the "Effective Communication for Software Engineers" course and some other resources.

I feel like a ton of effective communication is , and so finding a good way to teach it outside of observing those who are already good at communication in the context a job is tricky. Specific case studies could be really helpful. I think Alex's course and the other linked resources were a really good introduction to effective communication, but if this is the key skill behind great performance I want to learn more! I've put most of the tips and tricks that Alex taught into practice at my current job and it's really improved my performance and my managers' trust in me already. A huge mindset shift for me was that it's better to risk over-communication than under-communication; it's better to be aligned but slightly annoyed by receiving a lot of messages than not aligned.

My question is: What is a good way to go about building my effective communication skills? Are there more really high-quality resources you recommend for building good communication skills?

Hey! I am joining a startup as a Staff Engineer. I understand, titles can be inflated at a start up. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get to staff at big tech, without a supportive team.

My eventual goal is to be a staff engineer at a FAANG, or a very high achieving Senior at a FAANG. I want to use this startup "Staff" as a way to really hone my skills, learn and grow. Purely focussing on my love for coding, software engineering and learning, and not motivated by money.

Keeping the above in mind, how can I ensure, I have staff level scope ( & not just a title) at this startup.

And any tips for successful onboarding at a startup helps, from your personal experience.! ( Yes, I went through Rahul's course already :) )

It is a series B start up, with 70 people.

I'm struggling with my engineering manager's low emotional intelligence. The product he has been building for two years is barely generating revenue, and the outlook for the next six months doesn't look promising either. Recently, he insisted we fix a small bug on a Saturday night, suggesting we'd have to give a party if we didn't do it immediately. After we fixed the issue and pushed a production release late at night, other developers praised the effort on Slack. However, instead of acknowledging our hard work, he responded with a :expressionless: emoji the next morning.

This behavior has been demotivating and has affected my own emotional well-being. I want to avoid reacting negatively and lowering my EQ to his level, but I'm finding it difficult to navigate this culture.

Additionally, the team leads receive high ratings because people appreciate the timely pay, despite the lack of substantial work. These leads earn significantly more than senior engineers, yet they lack skills and are easily influenced by those who are close to them and act as yes men.

Our product is plagued with a lot of technical debt and frequent changes. In two years, our team built a fintech product that was supposed to generate significant revenue. However, we only have one merchant and two lenders, and our 20,000 customers generated just 30K INR in revenue last month after 1.5 million INR in transactions. The cash burn for this product is incredibly high, running into crores. I don't see this changing within the next year due to fierce competition and the difficulty of acquiring customers with good credit scores.

Given this environment, I am concerned about the sustainability of our efforts and the future of the team. The founder might shut down the product within a year due to the lack of revenue, and I'm unsure what will happen to the leads and the team. I want to keep an attitude that is unfazed by negativity and develop a thick skin while focusing on high-level engineering efforts. How can I effectively navigate this situation and maintain my motivation and professional integrity?

Large tech companies used to provide a sense of stability and financial security, but with falling stock prices and layoffs everywhere I wonder if joining a hyper growth late-stage startup with a growing business and hefty pre-ipo RSUs is a better choice?

What will you recommend me at this stage of my career to go back from leading teams to writing code or being a tech lead / tech lead manager role? The industry has changed and senior/director level roles have vanished.

As a founder of an early-stage startup, what are the top things you look for in your first five engineering hires? Are you searching for people who can handle a bit of everything, or do you prefer specialists in key areas? How do you balance technical skills with ensuring they fit well with your company's culture and vision?

Besides their technical know-how, what personal qualities are most important to you in these early hires? Do you value problem-solving skills and creativity over past experience in similar roles or industries? How crucial are soft skills like communication and adaptability, given the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of startups? And finally, how do you make sure these first hires will not only meet immediate project needs but also grow with the company as it expands?

I've been talking with different founders about startups and exploring different getting started with Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups? I also watched several of the . and it got me thinking about when the right time might be to start my own venture. Since I have high tolerance for risk, Could you provide some insights into what are strategies of finding co-founders?

Moreover, what are your thoughts on working on side projects or trial work with potential co-founders before fully committing to a startup? How effective is this approach for building strong, collaborative teams and testing ideas?

Additionally, I remember Alex and Rahul did explore incubators and accelerators as part of this process from one of the Taro Videos. These programs often facilitate co-founder matchmaking and provide a supportive environment. I also got accepted to On-Deck Program for their next cohort for 1 intensive week and thinking about applying to YC in the future with future co-founders. How beneficial are these resources for someone in the early stages of startup planning?

How beneficial are these resources, and which ones would you recommend prioritizing in the early stages of startup planning?

Hey Folks,

I have the famous question here : Big tech -> startup : Should I do it?

Context:

I have a pretty toxic leadership. I have even got offers internally, but the leadership played political and I didn't end up switching teams. Also to note, I was told that I have been given "meets most" or the lowest rating a person can get.

This was a pretty horrible, as I was in exceeds in my mid year. I am not sure why they are being nasty.

And rumor is that they will be letting folks with this rating go this month. ( All on blind, and some managers from other teams also confirmed, but I have not been given a last day yet)

Given this a context, I just want to see if I should take up a startup offer.

I have 10+ YOE, and I see that I am not getting as many calls as I used to just 2 years back. And the interviews are much more random. This makes me concerned.

I am not on visa. But moving from big tech -> start up is a huge paycut.

What do you suggest I do?

Hi All,

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I like to bring candour in conversations, but it's hard to do it without any sound, so the hearing sense for you right now is unused as you read forward. In fact if you memorise our business idea, you would be able to envision it just as I see it, by even [trying to temporarily] losing your sense of sight, you control your sense of vision. In a similar fashion we are delivering Control of all the Six Senses of the body though our Tech Solution.

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Opportunist @YogaPlusTech
Yellow Jacket @GeorgiaTech

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Preface: I might sound a bit critical at some points, but I’m asking this question with the intention of learning, not to demean others as this question has been on my mind for a while.

A big reason why people join startups is that at startups you learn faster than you would at big tech. What’s not clear to me though is how this actually translates to having a successful career (especially when transitioning to big tech). Specifically, how does “learning more” in startups/getting more scope in startups translate to “materialistic” rewards such as TC, getting into big tech, getting senior swe faster etc.?

I've seen Seed’s presentation about . He’s clearly achieved amazing things at Klaviyo, but at least from his LinkedIn profile, he joined Meta as an L5 (senior swe) with 4 yoe - couldn’t you achieve this result simply by working at Big Tech for just as long? If that’s the case, then what’s the point of joining a startup?

I’ve watched Taro’s masterclass on choosing a good company (and many other startup-related videos on Taro), and for the pros for startups - specifically getting more scope - seems very superficial. Similarly, the cons for big tech (the inverse of startup pros- harder to find scope) seems also superficial.

Questions for Alex and Rahul which I know were covered in some videos somewhere in snippets, but maybe not all in one question. Taro has amassed a lot of great content in its courses and blogs -- how long did it take to create initial MVP of quiz app before the Taro founders quit their jobs to go and work on Taro full time as a startup entrepreneurs?

• When did the founders pivot?
• How long did it take to create initial content (blogs over the years, lots of videos, powerpoints etc.)?

It's impressive to see the amount of rich content, how long did it take for Rahul and Alex to conceptualize Taro (in its early form, name), what ways did they test the success metrics of various pieces of content for a single feature (video series, single video/blog etc.) - how well did they perform over a given period of time?

Hey Taro

I am at this phase in my engineering life, where I want to move to a Bay Area/NYC-based startup in Series A/B or even seed. As an immigrant (with visa sponsorship needs), in times like this, it is quite difficult to get interview calls at all (I have submitted about 200+ startup applications!). If you have insight on how this could be hacked together (I am not super particular about problems the startup solves), I'd love to hear!

Thanks!

At the startup I’m currently interning at, there are no automated tests. Miraculously the entire system works. The codebase is small - my guess is around 50K LOC (they manually test everything). Since the engineering culture is pretty free flow, I’ve been able to set up unit and integration tests for code that I write from scratch (eg I can unit test classes I write, etc). I’d say I’ve written about 2000 - 2500 lines since starting in early June with a 60-40 split between code and unit tests. My company doesn’t do diff stacking, but I’d imagine I’d have 3-4 diffs based on the coding velocity course.

However, I’m having a bunch of trouble when I’m starting to integrate my code into production. I get a bunch of nasty linker errors (I work in C++) that require some workarounds and a lot of digging. As a result I’ve had to spend 2-3 days with these errors.

My gut feel is that these errors will continue to pop up as I continue coding, so should I just stop setting up automated tests and just manually verify, or is setting up tests worth the long term payoff? Since I’m interning every second matters.

I'd love to hear any decisions people made building side projects that you learned the hard way was a bad choice

I'll start:

Deploying ML models for a project is a pain. ML models are often 100-200 MB so you cant just deploy on a lightweight VM and it exceeds free tiers. I didn't want to pay to deploy a side project that has no users.

I tried digital ocean (i got a free 300$ credit) and it was a PAIN. I spent days 😭getting it working to no success. Eventually I used and it worked really well. Highly recommend. I wish I didn't try and deploy on a VM or use digital ocean for ML. Railway worked because it seamlessly downloads all the libraries from the code like heroku but cheaper but digital ocean's version of this had so many limitations with memory and ram and storage

Context

I have secured a job offer as a Tech Lead at Zepto - a series F startup based out of India.

The company is operating in quick commerce space which is like e-commerce in 10 minutes using Demand Prediction and Dark Stores in a certain region.

Career Aspirations

I have aspirations for career growth as an IC and the HR were rolling out offer for Staff as well, but stuck with Lead Software Engineer for now, so as to establish myself better first and then move towards staff role.

The Hiring Manager mentioned that it is possible to quickly progress to staff role in 4-5 months, which is a pure IC based role while Lead Software Engineer involved some level of team task prioritisation/planning etc. also

I had been trying to move ahead to Lead Software Engineer position in my previous company for a lot of years and did not get enough support.

Thus, I am really grateful to this offer and just want to give my best.

Would love any hear your thoughts on how to succeed as a Tech Lead.

Introductory call with CTO

With the context setup, The introductory calls are being scheduled now each coming week.

The first call being with the Company CTO.

I want to be able to have good learning and career growth at the company.

What are some of the questions I can ask as a to be Tech Lead at Zepto so as to make the best use of my call with him?

I was thinking about the following:

• What are some of the focus areas for us at Zepto in 2024?
• Does this translate to some high level focus areas for engineering teams? - such as building abstractions or a platform using which we can enable business better?
• Are there some technical hindrances that are being faced to achieve the focus areas for the business? or What could be some reasons to not be able to achieve above focus areas? And how are we planning to preempt them?
• Are there some areas of improvement you are seeing from an operational perspective in Tech & Product teams? Are we doing anything towards that?

Would love to hear your thoughts on the above. And hear more about the things I can discuss in the call.

My goal is to succeed as a Tech Lead for my team at Zepto, contribute as much as I can in terms of impact and learn from the experience.

References in comments due to character limit

I've got a performance review coming up. It's not my first one at the company, but it will be the first time I'll be actively pushing for a promotion. It's also the first review with a new format, where we'll need to align our accomplishments with company values and our roles' "competencies"—10 in total, which seems like quite a lot to me. In light of that, I have a few questions:

1. How long should a self-review generally be?
2. Should I cover all or as many of these values and competencies as I can, or should I focus on just a few of them?
3. Should I prioritize quality over quantity and share only the strongest achievements? Or does it make sense to include both the biggest achievements and just good ones?