How Alex Got Into Meta With 0 Prior LeetCode Experience

Write A Stellar Resume As A Software Engineer [Part 2] - Why You NEED A Killer Resume

As a software engineer, there are a million different things you can do. Choosing the right things to work on from engineer to engineer, but the good news is that having a great resume is one of those right things for every engineer. This lesson teaches you:

- Why optimizing your resume is one of the highest return on investments you can possibly do
- Understanding the overall job search funnel and how a good resume fits within it

Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 7] - Document As You Go

In system design interviews, it's essential to use multiple forms of communication—verbal, written, and visual. A common mistake is relying only on verbal communication, which can lead to confusion and missed opportunities to iterate on your design.

- Not writing anything down makes it difficult to follow your logic, especially when discussing complex systems. Without written or visual references, both you and the interviewer may struggle to keep track of the design.
- Documenting as you go—whether through diagrams, lists, or notes—makes it easier to iterate on and debug your design. It also frees up your mental resources to focus on solving new problems instead of remembering all the details.
- Finally, well-documented designs provide a useful reference for interviewers when they review your performance after the interview.

If you need extra help with your system design interview, [Formation.dev](https://formation.dev/partners/taro) can provide you hands-on, personalized support. Join us here: <https://formation.dev/partners/taro>

Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 10] - Don't Speak Only in Hypotheticals

In this video, we discuss a common mistake in technical interviews - Talking only in hypotheticals instead of applying knowledge to practical scenarios. Here are the key points we cover:

- Many candidates discuss system design concepts theoretically without considering real-world applications
- We provide an example contrasting a hypothetical approach with a more practical one
- The goal is to show real-world engineering skills, not just theoretical knowledge
- **Our main advice:** Avoid "it depends" answers and make assertive decisions with proper justification

If you need extra help with your system design interview, [Formation.dev](https://formation.dev/partners/taro) can provide you hands-on, personalized support. Join us here: <https://formation.dev/partners/taro>

Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 9] - Don't Draw Random Boxes

In this video, we discuss a common mistake in technical interviews: drawing random boxes without considering the bigger picture. Here are the key points we cover:

- Candidates often create isolated components without thinking about how they connect
- We provide an example contrasting a disorganized approach with a more thoughtful one
- Our recommended approach: Trace through data flows and user perspectives
- The goal is to think like an engineer: Identify the right problems before proposing solutions
- **Our main advice:** Don't just draw random boxes, trace data flow to uncover key system challenges

If you need extra help with your system design interview, [Formation.dev](https://formation.dev/partners/taro) can provide you hands-on, personalized support. Join us here: <https://formation.dev/partners/taro>

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 5] - Debug Your Productivity

Procrastination thrives when you confuse learning with progress. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Jumpstarting productivity means producing *before* you feel ready — even a rough draft unlocks momentum
- Replace the one-way flow of tutorials with a feedback loop: code → learn → refine
- Writing personal notes or process logs boosts clarity and reduces future ramp-up time
- Systematize repeatable work into reusable components to move faster with each project
- Build a library of “done before” artifacts you can copy, tweak, and ship again and again

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 15] - It's Not Just About Impact

*"I'm not getting promoted because my manager isn't giving me the proper projects"* is one of the classic excuses of software engineers who want to get promoted but are definitely not functioning at the next level. This lesson teaches you:

- Why impact has devolved into a near meaningless buzzword
- The right mentality to have when it comes to picking projects and thinking about impact
- The 6 axes that determine how much you get rewarded for working on a project (only 1 of them is impact)

To learn more about identifying the best projects and prioritizing properly, go through this discussion: ["How to figure out what the most important projects are?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CgCPA60bDDHoOteN7Lmb/how-to-figure-out-what-the-most-important-projects-are/)

Avoid This Performance Review Death Trap - Creating An Expectations Plan

- Work with your manager at the beginning of your performance review cycle to create a plan. Do this no matter what: Even if your goal isn't too ambitious and you just want to get an average rating.
- The plan should outline expectations for you very clearly, ideally as a checklist:
  - What does it mean to hit your baseline expectation and not be in danger of a performance improvement plan (PIP)?
  - What does it mean to knock it out of the park?
- Things will change, especially in high-performance tech companies. This document will change over time, and you and your manager should be 100% aware of this and adapt.

Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer [Part 9] - Code Quality

Mid-level engineers are usually very solid at coding, but what most don't realize is how high the ceiling truly is when it comes to code quality. This lesson teaches you:

- The difference in code quality between junior, mid-level, and senior engineers
- What a senior engineer level pull request looks like

Become a code quality master by taking our course here: [\[Course\] Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)

The Common Misconception With Help

When you're new, there's an overwhelming amount of information to absorb. You should plan to ask many, many questions, which means it's important to have the right framing of that interaction.

Obligatory Confucious quote:

> The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life

Myth #1:

- **Myth**: Asking for help is a sign of weakness ❌
- **Reality**: You’re expected to ask questions to gain knowledge and foster interaction ✅

Myth #2: 

- **Myth**: Everyone knows so much more than me, I’ll waste their time ❌
- **Reality**: Each person’s knowledge is incomplete ✅

Instead of thinking that building expertise in something is difficult or impossible, realize that **you can become more knowledgeable than anyone** as long as you narrow the scope appropriately. (e.g. "In one afternoon, I can go understand more about the flags to configure **git log** compared to anyone on my team of 10 people.")

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 4] - Go Deep, Not Broad

In order to become a tech lead, you need to have incredibly effective technical skills. So what does that mean?

- What it takes for your technical skills to be respected as an engineer
- Why depth is more important than breadth
- What it means to have true technical depth, shown with an in-depth example

To sharpen your technical depth, take our code quality course: [\[Course\] Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)

[Case Study] How To Land 18 FAANG+ Offers With Steven Zhang (Airtable, USDR, Tableau)

While on the job hunt in 2019, Steven Zhang received 18 offers (out of 22 onsites), including from companies such as Airbnb, Apple, Facebook, Palantir Technologies, Pinterest, Stripe, Uber.

In the process, he became an expert in software engineering interviews and job searching. Steven shared his thought process and methodology:

- When you have many interviews, **operationalize it, and treat it like a multi-week/month project**. Some days will feel like a slog, but that's ok and part of the process. (Steven used Airtable to coordinate all his conversations.)
- **Doing an interview prep course is completely worth it for DSA**. It may cost a few thousand dollars, but being able to land the ideal job is definitely worth it (and likely worth tens of thousands of $$). Steven used InterviewKickstart (his referral: https://bit.ly/swe-tips-ik).
- **For behavioral interviews**, Steven recommends:
  - Writing all questions you received in a Google doc
  - Recording yourself doing mock interviews with a friend and then listening to it.
- **Steven received offers at various levels through the bands**, from L3 (junior) to L5 (senior). Your level has huge implications for your compensation.
- Negotiation tips:
  - Negotiation should not be adversarial- think of it as doing price discovery
  - If you ask nicely, no one will rescind your offer for asking for more money.
  - Negotiation/post team matching is a way to get signal on the company itself

Relevant resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview - Data Structures And Algorithms](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/V4sTACzfOh22nMVcUV3w/masterclass-how-to-ace-your-big-tech-interview-data-structures-and-algorithms/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview - System Design](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/J3I9fTW9ulr6T9KjxpqY/masterclass-how-to-ace-your-big-tech-interview-system-design/)
- [How Alex Got Into Meta With 0 Prior LeetCode Experience](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/ZYiTbN21FsqFxFdpwt5a/how-alex-got-into-meta-with-0-prior-leetcode-experience/)
- Steven's [viral Medium article about this experience](https://medium.com/@stevenzhang/how-i-landed-18-faang-software-engineer-offers-after-not-interviewing-for-5-years-fc0dfc957a5d).
- Connect with [Steven on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenqzhang/)

Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 1] - Introduction

Hi, I’m Andy​​! 👋 In this course we’re going to cover the most common forms of equity compensation and benefits in tech, break them down, and provide strategies and thought frameworks for helping you maximize them.

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Leave feedback and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer [Part 6] - Social Pressure > Work Pressure

Too many software engineers focus on finding something cool to work on instead of finding cool people to work with. This lesson teaches you:

- Why a supportive team is far more valuable and effective when it comes to making you productivity compared to working on something shiny like genAI
- Tactics you can use to apply social pressure to yourself and enforce productivity

Learn how to find a good team here: [\[Taro Top 10\] How To Find A Good Engineering Team And Company](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/FWqTGeZYrXFohCOU38sR/)

A Huge, Often Unused Way Your Manager Can Help With Promotion

- Your manager is critical to your promotion. More specifically, if your manager is not supportive of your promotion case, it is near impossible for you to get promoted.
- You need to create a plan with your manager as soon as the performance review cycle starts to set expectations on what you need in order to be a good candidate for promotion. It should be modal and detail the following:
  - What it means to meet expectations
  - What it means to exceed expectations
  - What it means to totally crush expectations
- Regularly work with your manager to get feedback and understand your progress for this plan

DSA Crash Course [Part 12] - Pair Sum Approach

In this lesson, Alvin explores the strategy to solving the following interview problem:

> Write a function, *pair_sum*, that takes in a list and a target sum as arguments. The function should return a tuple containing a pair of indices whose elements sum to the given target. The indices returned must be unique.
>
> Be sure to return the indices, not the elements themselves.
>
> There is guaranteed to be one such pair that sums to the target.

```
pair_sum([3, 2, 5, 4, 1], 8) # -> (0, 2)
```

```
pair_sum([4, 7, 9, 2, 5, 1], 5) # -> (0, 5)
```

```
pair_sum([4, 7, 9, 2, 5, 1], 3) # -> (3, 5)
```

If you need additional support taking these DSA skills and actually applying them, take [**Alvin's**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/) *complete* data structures and algorithms course on [**Structy**](https://structy.net/?utm_source=taro). You can try out the concepts yourself in their interactive code editor and learn advanced DSA patterns like stack exhaustive recursion.

Use [**this link to get 20% off**](https://structy.net/purchase?promo_code=taro20) the entire Structy DSA learning experience.

Follow Alvin on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/>

There Is No Such Thing As A Stupid Question

What is a good amount of time to be stuck before asking a question?

True or false: To prove that you are a good engineer when joining a new team, you should ask as few questions as possible.

What is the optimal amount of questions to ask per week as a junior engineer?

True or false: Asking a lot of questions can help other people in your company and increase your respect within your team.

What are the benefits of asking a lot of good questions?

- There is no such thing as a stupid question: Each question is a genuine request to become more informed about the world.
- If there's a metric to measure your onboarding, it's the amount of questions you ask.
- Don't worry about how you'll look when you ask a question. If you have taken the time [to choose a healthy team](https://link.jointaro.com/WtZRJ5GtEVvAskLh8), they will not think any less of you for asking.
- It's much better to ask questions than to be stuck for days, if not weeks. *If you're completely stuck after 15-30 minutes, just ask the question*.
- If you're asking questions in a public forum (which you should!), you are creating content with your Q&A pair. Not only are you benefiting by getting unblocked, you are having multiplicative impact by creating a useful resource that will help the team across the future.
- *If you are asking questions the right way, people will not get mad at you for asking questions*.

So how do you ask the questions the right way? You can find [our in-depth guide on how to do that here](https://link.jointaro.com/yhEYut43nosKyPYw9).

The First Thing You Need To Do Before Figuring Out Your Next Company And Team

Choosing the right company and team for you as a software engineer is one of the most important decisions you'll make, and given the high turnover in the tech industry, is a decision that you will have to make multiple times. This is why having the right mentality here is so crucial, which is what this video covers.

Here are the core points:
- Everyone is different - There is simply no "one size fits all" career path for everyone. FAANG companies are great overall of course, but there are going to *many* people and situations where it doesn't make sense to go there.
- Before thinking about your next move, have an honest conversation with yourself and those close to you about your priorities. *Your goal is to create a stack-ranked lists of your priorities.*
- Prioritization is a much harder exercise than people realize as there's simply so many angles to it. Here the ones mentioned in the video:
  - Compensation
  - Work-life balance
  - Company prestige
  - Supportiveness of team
  - Growth opportunities
  - Stability
  - Maximum outcome (risk tolerance)
  - Remote work
  - Product space
  - Company ethics
  - Technical space
  - Level/title
  - Benefits
  - Location

This clip was taken from the following masterclass: [[Masterclass] How To Choose A Good Company And Team As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/0WEmTNZOMIh8xAdfO3JH/masterclass-how-to-choose-a-good-company-and-team-as-a-software-engineer/)

Related resources:
- ["How do I know when it's time to leave a team/company?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/2Ahiy6ZtUYWDjkSoG3Zk/how-do-i-know-when-its-time-to-leave-a-teamcompany/) - This is the Q&A that Rahul mentioned in this video.
- ["What's the difference between Big Tech and startups in terms of learning and growth?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/KWXIrFIR1EIJsvdOdo7u/whats-the-difference-between-big-tech-and-startups-in-terms-of-learning-and-growth/)

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 23] - Data Structures And Algorithms (DSA)

Data structures and algorithms (otherwise known as DSA) - We've all heard of them before. For many software engineers on the job hunt, it is the bane of their existence (and for good reason). This lesson teaches you:

- When to expect DSA problems during the interview loop
- How DSA problems came to take over the software engineer interview
- Why FAANG and Big Tech companies overall use DSA interviews so aggressively (hint: it's not because they're stupid)

To master the data structures and algorithms interview, check out these resources:

- [\[Course\] Master The Data Structures And Algorithms Interview](https://www.jointaro.com/course/master-the-data-structures-and-algorithms-interview/)
- [\[Taro Top 10\] Effective Interview Prep](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/HLBYxJI7D1j8STolrwum/)

PIP In Big Tech -- Amazon, Meta, Google

In this section, we cover the path for employees to enter a PIP for three Big Tech companies — Amazon, Meta, and Google.

At **Amazon**, the poor performance rating is called **Needs Improvement (NI)**. Poor performers are put on a Focus, which is a development plan to get back on track. Think of it like a warning. If the focus does not do well, the employee is put on a Pivot, at which point the options are to leave the company or accept a PIP. Learn more here: <https://www.jointaro.com/topic/amazon/performance-review/>

At **Meta**, the poor performance rating is called **Meets Some (MS)** or **Meets All (MA)** Expectations. If the HRBP (Human Resources Business Partner) is part of your review meeting, a PIP is likely. One unique policy of Meta is something called "up or out." This requires engineers to get promoted every few years until hitting Senior Engineer \[E5\]. Learn more at <https://www.jointaro.com/topic/meta/performance-review/>

At **Google**, the poor performance rating is called **Not Enough Impact (NI)** or **Moderate Impact (MI).** A "Support check-in" indicates poor performance and candidate for a PIP. Google is generally more laid-back when it comes to performance compared to other companies. Learn more here: <https://www.jointaro.com/topic/google/performance-review/>

Tech Career Growth Videos

Our instructional videos provide software engineers with insights needed for career growth. Masterclasses go incredibly in-depth on a specific tech topic while case studies are real examples from established engineering leaders.