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Team Selection Q&A and Videos

About Team Selection

The first step to career growth is to choose a good team that works for you and your goals. The career advice here teaches you how to do just that.

What type of environment allows fast career jumps?

Mid-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Mid-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community

I was wondering if you need to be part of a specific type of environment in order to make quick jumps in your career? Like to get promoted to senior level in 2 years.

I was asking because from my experience, there seems to be an invisible social hierarchy in every work place. Other people in the team may not allow me to make these jumps since this kind of anomaly will break the social hierarchy:

  • There is project specific information, in absence of really god wikis you have to rely on the peers in the team to provide you such information (like how are specific parts in a service working, or how is an obscure internal tool working etc). From what I see, often times they will provide small chunks of information, as much as you need to do your task, but small enough such that they still have the information and you depend on them (probably a measure to prevent others from replacing them).
  • Envy might appear between other senior folks if you progress quicker than them and might start to backstab you (For example, you need some information from them about a piece of code they wrote in order to progress, but they might do the knowledge transfer in such a way that it looks like they told you what you need to know, but in reality you got nothing; or might tell you to go debug to figure out how is something working, and you can spend days debugging modules when it would've been an 1 hour stretch if they simply told you or there was any wiki).
  • Manager might not want to give you extra money and compensate at your true value.
  • If you work too much, or too hard there's going to be problems withe the peers, because you increase the bar and kind of force them to work harder too.

I was asking these things, because I was wondering if I got anything wrong about these fast jumps or in general that I have a broken view about work. My first professional experience was an internship at a big tech and when got there the seniors told me that I have the same knowledge as a senior engineer, but best they could do was another internship next year (still in college).

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Choosing between 2 projects

Mid-Level Software Engineer [L4] at Taro Community profile pic
Mid-Level Software Engineer [L4] at Taro Community

I switched jobs ~4 months ago and switched teams (not voluntarily) after ~1 month. My eventual goal is to (voluntarily) internally transfer into the AI org once I'm eligible.

During a 1:1 with my skip manager, I mentioned that my current team didn’t have much opportunity for impact. He floated a meaty project in a different org and asked if I was interested. Previous question . Let’s call this option 1. Afterward, I spoke to my direct manager, who presented opportunities in the other team that he directly manages. Let’s call this option 2.

Now I'm trying to decide between these options.

Pros of option 1:

  • More technically interesting
  • Platform/infra play that will eventually integrate with every single product => project has large scope

Cons of option 1:

  • Not sure whom I'll work with
  • Not sure how much support I'd get. (Good thing if lots of scope; bad thing if I'm flailing alone)
  • Org structure tbd: although my skip asked if I want to work on this, he’s loaning engineers to another org to fund the initiative.
  • Uncertainty re: how well defined the work is

Pros of option 2:

  • I know there are things that I can start working on tomorrow that are time-sensitive and needed for an upcoming product launch.
  • My EM manages this team and is responsible for the overall delivery. He seems to care more about this new project/team than my current team.
    • It sounds like my EM would rather that I work on option 2 than option 1
  • Product surface is high-visibility and therefore affords opportunity for impact

Cons of option 2:

  • I'm less interested in product / user-facing work, even though it's high-visibility

With all this in mind, does anyone have advice on which option I should pick or things to keep in mind?

Thanks for reading this far!

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Transitioning into the compiler engineering field (or any other domain) if you are unemployed and don't have prior experience in the field

Senior Software Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Senior Software Engineer at Taro Community

I am currently seeking to transition into a career as a compiler engineer, a field I find deeply fascinating. The interdisciplinary nature of compiler engineering, bridging areas such as computer architecture and graph theory, intrigues me greatly. Additionally, the sector offers promising financial rewards, especially with companies like Meta, Nvidia, and AMD that are at the forefront of hardware accelerators experiencing significant growth. I am convinced this growth trajectory will continue, making this career path an ideal blend of intellectual fulfillment, professional growth, and competitive compensation.

Due to recent layoffs, I find myself unemployed, and I am seizing this moment to pivot towards compiler engineering. However, I acknowledge that there is a steep learning curve to becoming an ideal candidate for such positions. The required skill set typically includes:

  • Proficiency in C++
  • Experience with GPUs
  • Knowledge of an Intermediate Representation Language (e.g., LLVM)
  • Understanding of computer architecture

Previously, I worked as a senior backend engineer, specializing in tool development using functional programming languages such as Scala and Ocaml. My experience spans across FAANG companies and two startups.

To bridge the gap in my skill set, I have been actively contributing to open-source projects similar to LLVM and honing my C++ skills through consistent practice on Leetcode. Despite securing a few interviews for compiler engineering positions, I have not been successful, primarily due to difficulties with compiler-specific questions.

I seek advice on the following:

  1. How can I enhance my chances of entering the compiler engineering field, especially without being part of a compiler project community or holding a position of authority within such a project?
  2. What strategies can I employ to prepare for and succeed in domain-specific interviews, considering my lack of prior experience in this area?

Any guidance or insights from those who have navigated a similar path would be immensely appreciated.

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Is an abrupt team change by management a bad indicator of performance?

Associate Member of Technical Staff at Taro Community profile pic
Associate Member of Technical Staff at Taro Community

I had recently joined as an entry-level engineer 6 months ago, and I have been told now that I will be basically working as part of two teams, with half of my time devoted to each one. So I will essentially continue to deliver some work to my current team, while learning a new tech under the same org and delivering to them as well.

The new team I will be working with is still unsure, I have been given two options and have been told about the scope of each of them, I have to revert back with an answer in a few days. I have been told that priorities might change, and adjustments will be made accordingly. So everything is a bit dicey at the moment.

My concern relating to this is:

  • Is this an indication of my current team not having sufficient work for an entry-level software engineer like me? It is a database-ops team, already having 2 senior-level developers. Furthermore, is it an indication that I am not delivering at the level they expected and hence my abilities are not of use in the current scenario?
  • I haven't explicitly received any negative feedback from my manager or my peers so far, and have been overworking sometimes. However the current change is a bit overwhelming given it is still not sure where I would be used as a resource, or if my work is actually making an impact. Also even though there is no negative feedback, there has also not been a lot of positive encouragement, it is like a neutral situation where I have been told I am meeting expectations, but it feels like I might not be exceeding them, or might just be an average performer.

Just wanted to know if anyone here has faced this before, or have any insights on this. Also since the market is bad, I am a bit concerned that this change might not be an excuse for a future layoff or something like that.

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Projects vs. Open Source - which is better for my career?

Machine Learning Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Machine Learning Engineer at Taro Community

TL;DR Contribute to Open Source ML or do side projects for ML. Which do you suggest is the better option?

I just started a new job, but due to circumstances (visa, tough market), I had to take the first job I could take and I ended up in a devops/production support role where I cant really write much code or write any production code (literally dont have access to dev code). I dont plan to stay here long (>6 months).

I read the infamous "" post and wanted to do side projects so that I am not rusty

Context on me: 80% of my background is in Applied ML/Data Science and 20% is software engineering. I am interested in pursuing as an ML Engineer/Data Scientist

Open Source

Pros

  • Tons of open source ML stuff supported by big tech companies
    • Meta has a ton of OS projects
  • Huggingface is open source
    • Lot of companies use ML models from huggingface (for e.g. BERT for NLP). Would contributing to this on huggingface be seen as impressive?
  • Exposure to working on large codebases, good software engineering practice as well

Cons

  • Minimal Impact
  • Hard to showcase my achievements, especially on LinkedIn

Projects

Pros

  • Ability to make and measure impact
  • easy to showcase
  • learn a lot

Cons

  • For ML, projects with impact is hard to do. Most ML applications is based on improving current products using existing data
  • Experience from building ML projects might not translate to what I would do on the job as a lot of it involves working with Engineering around data
  • It takes time and a lot of effort to have a ton of downloads
  • Can end up taking a lot of non-ML work work (web design/frontend) which is not relevant to MLE

Final question: If I were to do open source, what is the best way to showcase on LinkedIn?

  • Do you suggest adding the company you did OS for under the experience section and saying "Open Source Contributor"? My concern with this is that it may sound scammy/shady
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